Things I'm Thankful For

Elliot, who makes me smile even when life's trowing rotten tomatoes

My family, who would love me even if I did give up, so they keep me going

My friends, who encourage me, inspire me, and make me laugh

My home and my neighbors. I love living with the memories I have here, and knowing the people around me care

PSRS - Karl's retirement plan, and the beautiful loophole that lets me spend so much time with my son without worrying about how we'll pay for food on the table or the roof over our heads

Time - there may never be enough, but I'm so glad I have what I do of it.

Thursday morning music class and Thursday night knitting, keeping me a little social despite my isolationist tendencies

Strength, Hope, and Resilience, which make up a critical part of my character. Whether it's nurture or nature, I'm grateful to my parents for giving me these

Digital Photography for making it so easy to take a walk down memory lane, share the latest moments of our lives with friends across the country, and freedom to go ahead and shoot 100 pictures of that sunset, one of em' will turn out, and it's just pixels - nothing to waste

Indoor plumbing. No list is complete without this one

Happy Thanksgiving - I hope your own list of blessings is long, and your day is full of reminders of warmth, love, a happiness to add to the list.

Driving home tonight, I’d been waiting in line at a stoplight when I looked up and saw them. They were halfway across the street, and I couldn’t take my eyes off their slow moving forms. Both were tall and graceful. She wore skinny jeans and a parka, he wore baggy jeans and a hoodie. He stood on the pedals of his bike, slightly behind her, hand on the brake, matching her pace. She walked with her back straight, her eyes forward; obviously aware of him – comfortable with him. They looked so young, so confident. They embodied contentment.

He pulled the bike up on the sidewalk, and stepped to the ground, putting a hand on her shoulder. Neither spoke. She climbed on the back of the bike, standing on the axle pegs, still graceful, now with her hands on his shoulders. Then they rolled forward, past my car, going back the direction from whence I’d come. The light turned green, and I smiled, resuming my own forward motion.

So strange what unexpected moments can catch your heart, and lift you up.

Doing NaNoWriMo. Doubt I'll "Win," but I've got a lot in my head right now, and figured it's better therapy to write a novel than burn away brain cells dropping bejeweled gems, right?

1,600 words down, 48,400 to go. I'm almost there!

Yes, I will be drawing from my experiences. No, it will not be 'about' me, except that it will. A 'what if?' memoir projecting into my near future if I were somebody else. Yep. All about me.

Here ya go:

It felt like a scalpel, or at least that’s what Emily thought as Jamie began working on her shoulder. Not that she’d ever been under the knife, as they say, but the first sensation felt surgical – like something being removed.

Emily knew she’d made the right decision. She’d been right to wait, but would have been wrong to wait any longer. He’d been gone less than a week when she decided she’d get the tattoo, but she’d agonized over when to do it. Today, it had been a year to the day, and it was time.

The ink gun’s buzzing subsided, and her skin quit burning. It was a cut that healed even as the knife moved through her skin – an eerie sensation to be sure. Emily glanced over her shoulder in the mirror. A single, curved black line marked where the arching neck would soon be.

“Are you all right?” Jamie asked.
She smiled. “I will be,” she said. And she would.