Tag: gratitude

gratitude in the year 2014

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turkey 2If I know even one thing about you, it’s that your life looks different than it did last year, maybe in big ways, maybe in small. This past year, and well, every year before that, we clumsily struggled to balance the big and the little, with varying degrees of success. If every single thing coming our way was a major life event, we’d be exhausted and broke. We can’t have a baby every day, or get married every week, indefinitely stay on that grand vacation, or graduate every couple of months. For sure, your aunt would eventually stop sending cards stuffed with $20.

After all the big stuff you fit in this year, comes the avalanche of small, with a few mediums squeezed in. We waver back and forth between celebrating the little, and wallowing in the little, and complaining about the little, then not sweating the little, as many a bumper sticker and motivational book advises us to do. Just as our life can’t be all big, it can’t be all little, because then I would have to mark my milestones with vanilla lattes and deals I’ve found at Target.

And so here we are, at the very best time of year to take stock in our lives – the big and the little – and remember that there’s simply more good than bad, and the big stuff sometimes isn’t as big as we think, and the little not as insignificant as it first appears.

  • However your family is constructed, whether it’s made of blood relatives or people you hand-picked, what a gift they are. These are some of the few people you still call on the phone, and ask favors of without feeling weird. You love them. And even after knowing all that stuff about you – the real you -the you that’s a poor sport, and a terrible singer, and chronically late, they love you back anyway.
  • Whoever your friends are, however difficult they may be, however many times you have driven them to the airport or helped them move, they know what you’re like at the end of a long night out, and that you have the tendency to talk too much/too little over coffee, and guess what? They still want to hang out with you, and you still want to hang out with them. They invite you to watch the game, or for a mani/pedi, and they don’t even mind that you are not as good at planning those kinds of outings as they are.
  • Maybe this is the year you gave up soda and dropped a few pounds. You ate clean and were the poster child for green juice. No? Guess what, another opportunity to juice everything is around the corner. And for whatever parts of you that seem to be working fine and humming along today, getting you where you need to be, thanks and hallelujah!
  • At least once a week, I threaten to quit reading the news, because lately it’s really just terrible, on a big global scale – TERRIBLE. But hey, this year, healthy panda triplets were born, and human twins were born holding hands. And remember when the Giants won the World Series? (Skip that one if you have to, Royals/Cardinals/Dodgers fans). Jimmy Fallon’s doing a great job with the Tonight Show; we still have another year of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosting the Golden Globes; it’s ok to wear loose fitting jeans again, and Gen Xers everywhere are celebrating the fashionable return of the plaid flannel shirt. This year a Time Magazine cover told us to “Eat Butter.”  It’s true, look it up, then eat some butter.

And don’t forget….

  • You celebrated a birthday – maybe even a big one.
  • At least one TV show you love did not get cancelled.
  • The time changed, and even though you hated it at first, you got used to it. So much so, you got mad when it changed again.
  • You ate a comfort meal that reminded you of your childhood.
  • You saw a breathtaking sunset/sunrise/full moon.
  • You splurged on something you shouldn’t have, but it felt great.
  • You read something that made you laugh/cry ugly/think hard.
  • You had the world’s best cup of coffee.
  • You helped someone who needed it.
  • Someone helped you when you needed it.
  • You found that thing you thought you’d lost. It was under the car seat/couch/pile of papers on the kitchen counter.
  • You found out they’re making Toy Story 4.
  • You got waaaaaaaaaaaay into the World Cup, and you didn’t let anybody forget it.
  • You didn’t have to get a new phone/you got to get a brand new phone!
  • Your March Madness bracket busted early, but that’s ok, so did everybody’s.
  • You finally learned the definition of zeitgeist/alchemy/schadenfreude/bae (thanks kids!) and look forward to putting them to good use in 2015, (much to the chagrin of said kids).
  • You got through something you didn’t know you could get through.
  • You got a little wiser.
  • And someone out there, whether you know it or not, is thankful for you.

Turkey

 

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Thanksgiving! Find me on Instagram @colleenweems, and Twitter @FulcrumChron

The Zero Years: Hitting 40 (or 30, or 50) and Hitting Reset

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40 outfit

I was sure this outfit made me look 20

When I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine what the adult version of me would look like. The only image I could picture was a generic brunette woman in high heels, miraculously free of freckles, holding a stylish clutch in one hand, and the upturned collar of a plaid blazer with the other – an image I probably borrowed from a model in a 1984 Spiegel catalog. I think I thumbed through the catalog’s pages and picked a future Colleen with just as much thought as it would have taken to decide upon the high-waisted, poly-blend, machine washable day-to-night stretch slacks that Colleen was wearing (slacks available in brown, black, crimson and navy).

But now, here I am – the adult Future Me; I’ve finally caught up with myself and am admittedly more excited to see what my kids will look like in 10 years, than what I will look like.

The arrival of Future Me has been on my mind for a couple of reasons. Not only does this week mark the one-year anniversary of the start of my saga with an incapacitating mystery brain illness and its iffy-turned-outstanding prognosis, but also, and more alarmingly….people born the same year as me have started turning 40.

We, the 1974ers, have been standing here holding our breath, waiting for our turn to jump into the 40’s abyss…an abyss I’m guessing smells like coffee, wine, car wax, chia seeds, and New Year’s Resolution gym sweat. We’ve already made our way through the 30’s abyss that was rife with kale, other wine, Black Fridays, parenting tips, and 5K’s.

I’ve been watching people gracefully handle their Zero Years– whether it’s 30, 40, 50, 60 or beyond – and how they choose to handle the new beginning the Zero allows them. They take a big trip, have a party, or sign up for a marathon. They write about it, too. They soul search, make a decision, change their hair, change their career, make a resolution, let go of something painful and, if all goes well, see the Zero for what it really is – a privilege.

We’ve made it! We’ve made it and the Zero rewards us with a chance to reset. Maybe we’ve been clinging a little too hard to that 9 year, but when we get to the Zero, it’s not an end, it’s a beginning; it’s a relief, and it’s a big deal.

Sure, 40 marks the beginning of getting to say “20 years ago” and still refer to a time in our adulthood. We check a different demographic box on the survey. We remember our parents in their 40’s when we thought they were so old. But now we know – they weren’t old, we were just young and dumb. It’s time to accept the reality that the NFL won’t be drafting us, and we might not get the chance to give the Academy Awards speech we wrote when we were 10.

But maybe we’re finally kinder to ourselves, and to each other while still enjoying the youthful luxury of expecting the best from ourselves, and each other. Maybe we’re still (or again) struggling to figure ourselves out. We’ve amassed actual life experience, and pray that it lifts us up instead of weighing us down. We’ve made mistakes, and we’ll make more, but maybe we’ll lean on that experience, and make smaller ones and fewer of them. Hopefully the Zero brings the wisdom that we’re not alone in this – whatever our “this” is.

It’s nice to have the company, and maybe in an inevitable moment of weakness, when we are comparing ourselves to each other and evaluating who’s accomplished what by when, the Zero will help us remember that not one of us is doing it exactly right, or exactly wrong. We each have sweetly unique stories to tell, augmented by all those Zeroes. I remind myself of this every day – when I’m feeling a bit lost, or unsure, or uppity.  I reminded myself of this when my husband woke up on his 40th birthday, and somehow looked younger than he did the day before.

Let’s help each other greet the next decade warmly so we can move on to the next thing like “make dental appointment” and “take up the bass guitar,” and let’s be happy we made it all the way to Zero.

Happy 40th to all my fellow 1974 babies. By the way, 1974 gave the world a lot of stuff: “Happy Days,” “Good Times,” “Little House on the Prairie,” Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” Stephen King’s “Carrie,” and Carl Bernstein’s “All the President’s Men.” 1974 brought you Leonardo DiCaprio, Jimmy Fallon, Elizabeth Banks, Christian Bale, Tiffani Amber-Thiessen, Lark Voorhies and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (that’s most of the “Saved by the Bell” cast right there), Ryan Seacrest, Amy Adams, Nelly, Cee Lo Green, Victoria Beckham, Derek Jeter, Lil Kim, Steve Nash, Carrie Brownstein, Kate Moss, Penelope Cruz, Alanis Morissette, Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes, Jenna Fischer, Mekhi Phifer, Bear Grylls, Jewel, Da Brat and Hilary Swank. You have 1974 to thank for “Blazing Saddles,” “The Sting,” “The Godfather: Part II,” “Chinatown,” “Young Frankenstein,” ”The Conversation,” “The Towering Inferno,” and “Murder on the Orient Express.” In 1974, Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s timeless hit “Takin’ Care of Business,” was released as were Steve Miller’s “The Joker,” and Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets.” Don’t forget Connect 4, the Magna Doodle, Post-It Notes, the Rubik’s Cube, Hello Kitty, Dungeons & Dragons, liposuction, the Heimlich Maneuver, and Richard Nixon’s resignation. 

40 bakingI got my 40-year-old lady haircut when I was 12.

You can find me on Instagram at colleenweems,

and Twitter @FulcrumChron

Hey Internet, what have you got against my heartstrings?

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heartsrings

What are you trying to do to me America?

Facebook turned 10 this week, and I spent a good part of the big day watching the Look Back videos Facebook created for us, their begrudgingly loyal users, highlighting years’ worth of our photos and status updates. There, set to the most perfectly inspirational, emotionally manipulative-but-I-like-it, nostalgic-though-I’ve-never-heard-it, instrumental piece of music, was a peek into my near seven years on Facebook.

I cried at the pictures of my kids from when they were little. I cried at the wedding photo I posted for our 17th anniversary, and at pictures from Disneyland and Christmas and our friends’ Nicaragua wedding and my dining room table.

Then, I cried at Melissa’s, Jill’s, and Pam’s Look Back videos too. I got emotional with Katharine’s, Tricia’s, Kirsten’s, Tim’s and Sheila’s – and that was in the first two hours.

We’ve read the cautionary tales about social media – linger there too long and you can be left feeling empty and depressed because your friends seem like they are having a better time than you, and to add insult to injury, you weren’t invited to their good time. You were already well aware that your own life wasn’t perfect, but then, blammo, there’s your life, set against that perfect piece of music – and you realize, it’s pretty magical after all.

I needed a break from all the Looking Back and turned my attention to what my 13-year-old was watching on ESPN – Super Bowl winners through the years, searching for their family members after the game, desperate to share their joyful elation with the ones they love.

“Who’s that?” I asked Jacob, already starting to tear up.

“That’s Jason Pierre-Paul. He plays for the New York Giants, and his dad is blind.”

Tom Brady looked for and hugged his sisters (I guess before he married the supermodel?). Dick Vermeil loves his wife AND his grandkids. Ray Lewis loves everybody. Big muscley guys hug their moms and dads, kiss their stunning wives, and cradle their babies, after a win OR a loss.  And it is beautiful.

“You are why they make these videos,” my husband tells me at the end of every one of these sports specials.  If I watch the pre-game show of a game I otherwise could not give two hoots about, I am suddenly pulling for the guy who overcame something terrible to get where he is today. I am now his number one fan, and anybody who roots against him has no soul. (Full disclosure – I may have also once cried while watching the ESPY’s.)

I left Jacob to his stats and analysis of a game that was two days in the books and retreated online only to find stories of a good Samaritan handing out $5000 checks to waitresses struggling to pay for their educations; a school custodian who completed his own higher education during his few off-hours, only to work his way up to teacher, and finally principal overlooking the same classrooms he had once cleaned. There was the 13-year-old with strong pipes and a dream crushing a Nina Simone song; a philanthropic couple picking up the cost of San Francisco going all out to celebrate Bat Kid; a dog and a cat being best friends; and God knows how many people saving other people from train tracks.

Thanks to the Superbowl, this week I’ve already watched, re-watched and re-wept at the (somehow controversial) Coca-Cola ad during which “America the Beautiful” is sung in different languages and the sweet Cheerios ad with the (somehow controversial) biracial family. Don’t even get me started on the puppy and the Clydesdale.

My heartstrings are all stretched out and exhausted…exhausted, but happy. Which reminds me that Pharrell’s appropriately named anthem for happiness, “Happy,” is practically guaranteed to play on the car radio at some point of your commute.

Goodness isn’t new, but I pray to God it’s just extra noticeable this week, and not simply trending.

Maybe we all just need a healthy dose of nice. Perhaps there is something in our DNA that seeks out good when overwhelmed by the icky, the bleak and the #RichKidsofBeverlyHills. Maybe we are all just collectively looking for the anecdote for the snarkiness, cynicism, grumpiness, injustice, and sadness we see in real life and whenever we turn on anything with a screen.  I don’t know, maybe we all just have a bad feeling about these Olympics.

It’s ok to admit that sometimes we want a good cry for a good reason. Being touched so deeply by something we simply see reminds us that we are capable of all kinds of feelings – not just anger, amusement, or “meh,” – but also forward-looking hope and backward-looking gratitude. There is still a lot of love out there floating around, and it’s ours to take, and share.

DON’T GET BANGS and other things to know in case you get a brain virus

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Image“Do you realize the person in this house with short-term memory problems is also the person who put away most of the stuff from our moving boxes, and now is the only one who knows where everything is?”

I would tell you how my darling husband John responded, if I could remember.

The last time I posted here, I was brimming with a hopeful excitement about a future where I could lounge on a then-unidentified couch in a similarly unidentified home in a new city. Now I lounge on a fully identified couch in our new condo while my cat sits in the window enjoying the fog obscured view of San Francisco.

As we anticipated, life is different – the schools, the parking, the restaurants. What I had not expected way back then, was that I would be different. The city didn’t do that though. My brain did.

While I am in the process of forgetting where I’ve put our belongings, I am also recovering from a bizarrely inconvenient, temporarily debilitating virus that came out of nowhere and attacked the very brain I had become so attached to. Sure my brain was not much help in high school Algebra, but it’s gotten me out of some sticky situations, and I had woefully under-appreciated how, for 38 years, my brain helped me walk, and talk, and touch my nose, and remember what movie that guy in that one commercial was in, and also do basic addition and subtraction if the moment absolutely, positively necessitated it, and nobody else was there to handle it.

It was Valentine’s weekend. John and I had packed up our offices, and said “see you later!” to our friends. We’d found a new place to live, and were readying our family for the move. We even tried to go away for a romantic wine country getaway that was cut ridiculously short by what I thought was a run-of-the-mill cold turned piercing ear infection. I was dizzy and nauseous and subsequently and sadly not at all interested in wine or romance.

Things get fuzzy for me at about this point in the timeline. Somewhere between, “Oh, I think I’m coming down with a cold,” and “garble garble non-sensical slurry garble,” John took me to the hospital where I was admitted, and soon sent to the stroke unit. My brain became the focus of a team of neurologists and infectious disease specialists. I couldn’t walk or eat, and I was slurring terribly. My dexterity was shot; I couldn’t touch my nose, use my fingers, or pass the same impairment tests used at field sobriety checkpoints. My cognitive functioning was on the fritz and I was showing signs of memory loss. The orthopedist made an appearance too, but he wasn’t as interested in my brain as he was my knee that had been dislocated in the ER during a lumbar puncture.

A cadre of tests eliminated stroke, brain tumors, ALS, MS, Lyme Disease, and Gullain-Barre syndrome, among other things.

I vaguely remember a young woman fastening electrodes to my head for the EEG and the loud whirs of the MRI tube. My brain was swollen, and not in the fun cartoony way that should have actually made me smarter.

John slept on a cot at my bedside each night, and I spent a few days with a pair of his (clean) running pants wrapped around my eyes to block any and all offending light whether it was from a crack in the blinds, or the glaring rays of fluorescence sneaking in under my hospital room door.

John also spent the first few days of my hospitalization sitting with the news that I might not make it through this illness- a fact I was not aware of until I was home from the hospital two weeks later, eating a Jell-O cup in bed. I had a virus, and it was either going to get better, or it was going to get worse.

I’ve lost huge chunks of memory from the first five or so days in the hospital, with only hazy recollections of voices, and faces, and discomfort, and apologizing to the nursing staff for the unpleasant things they had to do to keep me from getting bed sores. If I was going anywhere, the lift team was involved. The lift team is made up young, strong guys who are there to lift you if you can’t do it yourself. I apologized to them too.

Finally, I started to get better, which is better than getting worse.

The one good thing about your brain causing the hitch in your giddy-up, is that the very fact it’s malfunctioning, keeps you from truly realizing what a pickle you are in.

I may not have fully realized the badness of my situation, but I could still kinda think, and started to hope that I would emerge on the other side of this thing with at least something to show for it.

“Perhaps, there is a lesson in this,” I thought as I lay there immobile, “What is it?  Be nicer? Don’t stress about dumb stuff? The wine country is dangerous? What is it?”

All of those things are true. But also:

  • Our time here is short and there’s a lot to do, which is frustrating when you really can’t do a lot as fast as you would like. Do what you can.
  •  But you can’t do it all. Choose wisely.
  •  Don’t ever get bangs. On the off chance you are growing out those bangs at the exact moment you end up in the hospital with limited use of your limbs and zero dexterity, your inability to keep the bangs out of your face will consume you. Your world will have shrunk to the exact size of your hospital bed, and there will be some moments where it feels as if it’s actually shrunk to the size of your wayward bangs. You will tell everybody who happens into your tiny world, that even though you have a mystery virus, and you’re hooked up to machines and tubes, your top complaint of the day is your unwieldy hair. The occupational therapist who successfully harnessed my gnarly mane, bangs and all, into a lovely braid, is to me, one of Earth’s top people.
  • Never keep underwear at home in your dresser drawer that you wouldn’t want someone to bring you in the hospital, because that is the exact underwear that will be delivered to you.
  •  Nobody goes into the healthcare field for the glamour of it. Because, unless they are going to the black-tie Healthcare Workers Gala in a hotel ballroom on a balmy May evening, there is just no glamour. None. Not any.These healthcare types are with us in the trenches during some of our darkest and ugliest moments. My pastor husband and I often discuss what it means to have a sense of call, which is what finally made him take the turn from a business guy in a suit, to a reverend guy in a suit. Callings aren’t just for pastors though – people are called to all kinds of professions that defy logic, like teaching, and law enforcement, and whatever job it is that puts a person at the other end of a hospital room call button at 3:30 am.
  • Gratitude is hard (especially with hair in your face) but it’s good for you. I’m not just thankful for being on the intermittently bumpy road to recovery, which I am, but I’m forever thankful to God for my amazing husband, kids, parents, family and friends and the hundreds of people who reached out, prayed, made a meal, sent flowers, took care of the boys, sat at my bedside patiently listening as I slurred and repeated myself, or helped us out once I finally came home and clumsily climbed into my own bed. The more gratitude I can find in a day, the better I feel.
  • Save yourself the brain virus, and *skip the wine country. You can drink wine anywhere.

*I fully acknowledge the Wine Country, and the fine people of Sonoma County California did not give me my brain virus.

Today, I’m two months out of the hospital and off the walker, one month past my last bout of vertigo, about 20 hours since my last headache, and hopefully moments away from totally re-gaining the rest of my short-term memory and ridding myself of the overwhelmingly pinchy feeling that comes when there’s too much input into my poor addled brain. I did not emerge with any cool superpowers, as my wonderful, sweet, caring boys had hoped. I did get that squeezy brain up there from one of the nurses on the stroke unit, and that was cool.

This is me in my pants hat – perhaps the greatest medical invention of February 2013.hospital

one small candle

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This is a gratitude emergency.

Last year, for weeks before Thanksgiving, my Facebook news stream was full of little things that people were thankful for. This year, not so much.

Ok, so things in the world aren’t exactly perfect right now. The air out there is charged with the uncertainty that accompanies transition and that moment just before hope is lost.  On the scary scale, uncertainty is right up there with mannequins and clowns.

Jobs are uncertain, relationships are uncertain, health is uncertain. The news is dismal, the weather is weird, and people are cranky.

However, there is something about today that has just got to be great. Start small if necessary. Was your pancake good? Are you wearing your favorite sweater? Is your chair comfortable?

At the beginning of this year, I wrote about my blanket. I was so stressed and tired that I thought I had lost my mind, with the telltale sign being my proclivity for wearing this blanket as a cape. Eleven months later, I am again wearing the blanket as a cape. It’s fine, I get it. I’m a lady who wears a blanket for a cape as I sit typing in the dark early morning hours. It’s soft and warm and I’m happy to have it, even if it makes me look crazy.

You may, as I do, hate the idea that Black Friday starts on Thanksgiving Thursday. Let’s be thankful we can protest by refusing to go out there and get in a shouting match over a panini press with a stressed out woman in a Santa sweatshirt. My plan instead, is to eat an extra piece of pie and lay around, hard, just to make a point. Join me, won’t you?

The Muppets are back, and early reviews are good. You can say “wocka wocka,” and do your best Janice impression (everybody needs to have a Janice/Swedish Chef/Beaker impression at the ready in their backpocket.) Your kids will get it finally and you can feel relevant again!

Don’t forget the people. Of course we are thankful for the people  who love us unconditionally, and support us no matter what. Let’s not forget the ones who show up out of nowhere, and bring a little sparkle to the day, even if they don’t mean to.

Our church campus doesn’t get quiet during Thanksgiving week – it comes even more alive. Part of my job is to organize a large Thanksgiving Eve dinner that leaves me depending on an army of volunteers to show up the night before Thanksgiving and help welcome and serve a couple hundred people. Without fail, I have my annual dream a few nights before the dinner, that this is the year the volunteers forget to show up. That dream, along with the one where I am treated to unlimited shoe shopping, has yet to come true. Instead, on Thanksgiving Eve, I am once again surrounded by people who are happily hauling vegetables, counting spoons and lighting candles, though there are plenty of other places they could be.

And then, sometimes, the most significant wallop of gratitude comes from the smallest moment.

Part of John’s job is to oversee our church’s hosting of a shelter for homeless families the two weeks surrounding Thanksgiving. The campus practically bursts at the seams with our lovely guests and the volunteers who arrive in droves to tutor, cook, clean, sit and visit. I walked in on the action a couple of nights ago….not to lend a kind and helping hand, but to track down someone who had something I needed. I came in with an agenda, stomping around in a hurry, when a shelter guest approached me – a boy about 11, the same age as my eldest son. He shook my hand and introduced himself with a strong voice full of cheer and respect. He chatted for a moment before he excused himself, book in hand, to find a quiet spot in the shelter to read. I wanted to yell after him, “When the day comes, you have my vote!” Instead I stood dumbly staring after him as he disappeared behind a curtain.

“That kid’s amazing; he’s going to do great things in life,” John gestured to the boy, after noticing I’d been struck speechless by confusing emotions –  awe, sadness, guilt, frustration that there are kids in crummy situations, and affirmation that kids  – any kids at all – are capable of such poise and manners. I had come in to the shelter with my thinking eyebrows and gameface on, and that boy was the one who had graciously welcomed me to his very temporary home, which on most days is just our church’s Fellowship Hall. I left, not brimming with gratitude for my house, hot meals or creature comforts, but thankful that I’d met someone who is out there doing what we are all tasked with….reflecting light, joy, hospitality, and kindness into a world that could really use it.

“There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of one small candle.” – Anonymous

I am thankful for you! Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

hey man, thanks.

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Once again, Thanksgiving week has turned out to be one of my busiest at work. And although, some might beg to differ, it’s not retail. Church has been completely abuzz this week with energy and all kinds of activity –  people carrying boxes, rolling carts, and yelling questions to each other across the parking lot. And though I might be running around yelling “Wow, it’s busy! And it’s cold! Can you believe how cold it is?!” I totally have the warm fuzzies. Because it seems entirely appropriate to me that church would be a hub of gratitude.

I’ve thought a lot about gratitude, watching all of these people and reading your wonderful, real, funny, tender Facebook updates about the things you are thankful for. And if you sit down and think really hard about what it means to be thankful, I mean really hard, like the kind of thinking you do when you randomly fixate on the chicken/egg dilemma, it will knock your flippin’ socks off.

And when you think that hard, it becomes pretty clear that even though they can sometimes give you a headache or make you want to hide under your desk, the greatest blessings God sends us, whether we like it or not, come in the form of beautifully flawed people and the little people things that they do, often when we least expect it. We are gifted every day without deserving it, and it is such a treat and a humble honor to think of the kind things that people have done for seemingly no reason at all. Invisible little blessings that when they are all put together, are sometimes the things that simply get us through the day, or even change the trajectory of our month. I’m not talking about generic people out there somewhere, but specific people with faces and everything. Know what? That’s you – I’m thankful for you. Yup, you. You might not even know you’re doing it, but you are and it rocks.

Thanks for the homemade soup last week. Thanks for inviting me to your wedding. Thanks for complimenting my hat. Thanks for the nice email out of the blue. Thanks for your understanding that I haven’t been able to return that email as fast as I should and that I didn’t call like I was supposed to. Thanks for the gift card. Thanks for lending me that book. Thanks for helping me out on this event, and that one last year too. Thanks for the advice on that thing. Thanks for lunch. Thanks for making me laugh. Thanks for driving. Thanks for calling. Thanks for grabbing me an iced tea. Thanks for the baby announcement. Thanks for leaving that cookie on my desk. Thanks for sending me that funny video, even thought it wouldn’t work on my computer. Thanks for offering to feed our new kitty when we’re away. Thanks for posting such funny Facebook comments. Thanks for giving me your last Kit Kat. Thanks for reading this blog. Thanks for the flowers. Thanks for agreeing with me. Thanks for confirming that I am not, in fact, crazy. Thanks for digging Twilight with me. Thanks for putting up with me, even though I’m totally annoying when it comes to Twilight. Thanks for being so nice to that lady, when I just didn’t have the energy. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for letting me love you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And because I care for you – I beg of you. Please don’t go to Kohl’s at 3:00 am. Stay up late and play a game with your friends. Eat a second piece of pie. Watch a movie you’ve seen a thousand times, but do not go to Kohl’s at 3:00 am. It will not make you feel better. It is scary out there. Not because it’s completely dark, and you’re hanging out where nobody has any business being that early in the morning. It’s scary because there are people out there who will not think twice about taking you down if you stand in between them and that talking doll/flat screen/video game system/electronic picture frame. I went out early once– it was for an all-terrain remote control car. I mean, thank God I was there right? I got it. I was a winner. Jake played with it and played with it. And by that, I mean he played with it exactly twice. The closest it got to all terrain was driving over the other toys that lay forgotten in its path. Plus, getting up early is hard.