Willing Thankfulness

It find it ironic that this is Thanksgiving week.  We will have a simple family turkey dinner and also celebrate my youngest daughter's birthday.  We are up to our ears preparing for The Vermont Farmer's Market Christmas Fair at Poultney High School  in Poultney, Vermont on Friday and Saturday (10:00 a.m-4:00 p.m.), to be followed by The Common Thread Give-Away on Cyber Monday, Dec 4th. I am to be the featured artist and will be giving away one of my special pincushions and we are posting almost all of my wares in my Little House Home Arts Etsy Shop for the occasion.

I recently complained to my doctor that I don't multi-task well, and she laughed and told me that at my age I need to give up on that goal. Being realistic about my limits, however, continues to be a weakness of mine, and so I find myself full-speed ahead and going in all directions, with certain chaos ensuing. My doctor is right.  Clearly, my ability to organize more than a one ring circus is past!

Thanksgiving week also brings another tradition.  It is the time to "squeeze in" (pun intended) my needed mammogram.  It doesn't require long-range planning that way and still gets the job done before the new year begins with new insurance deductibles.  So while everyone is making their Thanksgiving pies and rolling out their pie dough, my breasts will go through a similar process! My daughter recently found me a card commemorating a song I re-wrote for the aftermath of this procedure. "Do your boobs hang low, do they wobble to and fro, can you tie them in a knot, can you tie them in a bow?"...Clearly the card must have plagiarized what has now become my Thanksgiving season song.

Have you ever noticed that "it never rains but what it pours"? And so it is this Thanksgiving Season that the reality has hit that my husband's new job of many months has not yet brought the promised salary and it is time to face the facts that we can no longer stretch the pay that equals one-third of his previous salary to meet our needs. I have to smile and consider the holiday season and realize that "genuine thankfulness" will require an exercise of will.  There is no doubt that blessings abound, but clearly this season we may have to go looking for our blessings beneath the clutter, the chaos, the physical torture, and our needs appearing to out-weigh our fortunes. But isn't that where true blessing are often found?

Buried under it all, we have found many blessings: a Thanksgiving Day child now 26, our bellies soon to be full of turkey and trimmings to make us sleepy and relaxed  prior to a busy two day craft sale, and then a cyber sale. I am also thankful that my oldest daughter is doing most of the cooking, and is now "brave enough" (in her words) to pull the giblets out of the turkey herself! Our pantries are filled with our home-canned goods, our freezer is full as well and our Thanksgiving gathering will remind us that we have the love of each other! Could we want for more?

I wish all of my readers a truly wonderful Thanksgiving Day, filled with gratitude for your blessings, no matter the circumstances that may surround you! (And if you live in or around Vermont, do come and see us at Poultney High School on Friday and Saturday!)