The Post We're All Writing Today

I'll only speak for myself here - I love a day (a season!) that inspires gratitude on all sides. I think back on the past month and I remember that first smooth stone, tossed into the pond. Gratitude. It slipped beneath the surface and the concentric circles formed and before we knew it, we were all thinking harder about the things we are most thankful for. So, to whomever let that first stone fly - thank you.

If we all decided to log our every thankful, wouldn't we each have a volume so thick as to require its own shelf on the book case? I think, in the end, that our time might be better spent living gratitude than writing every whip-stitch of it down. So, let's make a deal. Let's agree to pen our thankfuls on the inside surface of our hearts, every day. Let's promise to press down hard when we write.

For tonight, I'll not attempt the unabridged list. Instead, I'll share some here-and-now, bright-burning highlights.

I'm thankful that I'm spending my first Thanksgiving with my Computer Programmer. Last year my heart was a little fogged over. My family incomplete. This year, I have new wrinkles and a new tinge of weariness, but what it means is that he's with us, and I'll take it.

I'm thankful for Frick and Frack, who live their days as best friends. Tonight, that meant stuffing Stripey and Jumpy into empty baby bottles and pretending they were astronauts for one hour straight. It meant that Calvin carried Ruby's laundry to the hamper, without being asked.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to bake three desserts in less than 24 hours, starting with an apple crisp that indeed lives up to its name. Incidentally, I'm also thankful for Andrew Zimmern of "Bizarre Foods" fame. Upon discovering this show streaming through the internet, my oldest, pickiest child has grown quite fond of trying anything and everything I offer. It turns out, he does like apple crisp. And pickled beets.

I'm thankful for unexpected surprises left on my baking station, at the hands of Ruby River and half a roll of tape. (Sister's got mad scissor skillz! And she's a lefty...)

I'm thankful for the cachepot of friends I have collected - who have added me to their collection - since this time last year, many of which came to me through this very machine.

I'm thankful for the hope of a new story.

I'm thankful that I am much more than the sum total of all my failures.

I'm thankful that Tom & Jerry humor transcends generations.

I'm thankful for the guy at the other end of the couch.

I'm thankful for the rattle and whir of a furnace, for air scented heavy with orange, for ponytails and Haven Kimmel, for ugly blue blankets and cinnamon rolls in the fridge for tomorrow morning - the kind that you have to whack on the countertop to open.

I hope all of you have big fun brewing for tomorrow.

And remember - press hard.