In no particular order, what I’m thankful for this trip around the sun.

This year I am thankful to have made it so far without contracting COVID and to be fully vaccinated and boosted. I’m thankful that my immediate family and close friends have made through this as well, although some of them did get COVID, they’ve survived.

Working from the hotel en route to Peoria with the cats exploring around me.

I am thankful to be traveling to visit family for the holidays. I’m happy to have these plans and I’m happy that the stress of the holidays feels relatively ‘normal’ compared to last year when I was torn be indecision, worry, and concern about the wisdom of traveling at all.

I’m thankful that Dean and I are both in better financial situations, with jobs that make us feel more fulfilled than this time last year. It’s amazing how much just a little bump in income can affect every aspect of your life.

I’m thankful that the current issue with our car is something that we can manage safely until we can get into a mechanic and that the flat tire we got this week happened on Monday when the weather was mild enough for me to bike in to teach and Dean’s job offered him the flexibility to get it fixed that day. I’m thankful that I had my eyes in after my early morning run so that it was caught before 6:30am. I’m thankful that my dad gave us a portable air compressor that plugs into a cigarette lighter that, although ancient, pumped up our tire enough so that Dean could get it safely into the Walmart. I’m thankful that, because of changes mentioned above, when Dean texted that we would need a new tire, I just wrote back that I had figured that was the case, with no panic, worry, or mental calculations about cutbacks that would need to be made in order to accommodate this.

I’m thankful to be in a marriage that has grown and evolved over the last few years of hardships to feel like a more solid partnership than ever before.

I’m thankful for those hardships, as they’ve not only made us stronger, but allow us to truly appreciate the crest of the wave that we are now riding.

I’m thankful for these goofy cats we have. Their completely opposite personalities and destructive energy keep us on our toes and keep us laughing. I’m thankful that they’re traveling much better this year than last year. I love them so much. Even as a song I heard this morning made me shed tears over Jake’s memory, I still have room in my heart for these panther-sized weirdos. I’m thankful for that, too.

I’m thankful for my writer’s group. It’s small and mighty and these ladies keep me creating and keep me honest. They don’t let me write crap and when I do it anyway, they’re there with ways to pull a gem out of it. I’m thankful that we’ve grown into more than just a writers group and that we’ve all formed individual friendships beyond it.

I’m thankful for friends living far away that make efforts to stay in touch by calling, texting, making plans for trips, emailing, zooming, etc. It’s always a good feeling when you matter as much to someone else as they matter to you. It’s nice when someone takes effort to continue keeping you in their life when distance makes it a little more difficult.

I’m thankful for all of the text messages pouring into my phone this morning with happy wishes and nice messages and funny pictures. I’m thankful to be thought of by so many.

My friend Patti lives in Chicago now and met me in Louisville to support me for my first half marathon post injury. (We also painted the town, of course.)

I’m thankful for my volleyball team. A group of people so weird and welcoming that they genuinely didn’t care when Dean and I managed to drag us down into the bottom of the league, quite probably just between the two of us. Who really were just there to have fun and encouraged and cheered for the two of us any time we even accidentally hit the ball in the right direction.

I’m thankful for the new friends I’ve made this year and friendships that have continued to grow.

I’m thankful for you, reading this, for caring enough to be interested. I hope you have a handful of things to be thankful of yourself right now. And I hope that handful continues to grow and multiply until you can’t possibly contain it and have to start passing it on.

Happy thanksgiving.

Hey, thanks!