I Can Almost Smell the Turkey Roasting

     I'm zeroing in on the day, just counting the hours.  Tomorrow will be overflowing with good food, great company and abundant laughter.  Thanksgiving is just a day away and I'm as excited to be preparing for it as I will be to actually sit down with family and enjoy the fruits of our labor and God's blessings.

     Today will be consumed with baking pies and bread, and spending some time saying, "thanks" to at least a few friends who have blessed my life during this past year.  No working today, just enjoying the privilege of  time to do what I love best--be at home doing homey things.  I suppose if every day were like this I wouldn't appreciate it so much.  But every day isn't, so it's a treat and a blessing that I plan to thoroughly enjoy.

      To my family who can't be here--I am so grateful for your good lives and I miss you all so very much!  To my friends who live far away--I am as thankful for you as ever, and wish the distance that separates us could vanish, and that you could be a very present part of this festive season.  To my friends and family who are near--thank you for the time you allow us to share, the memories you are helping to make, and the love you so generously express each day of the year.  To my readers, both in the United States and in some dozen foreign countries, I appreciate your visiting this site so regularly.  I hope it helps to inspire your own sense of gratitude and that it brings all of our hearts a little closer to a recognition of just how much we are all alike.  Thank you for your support.  I am overwhelmed with blessings, and don't know nearly enough words to express the gratitude I feel.

     Thornton Wilder wrote, "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."  Perhaps that is why Thanksgiving is so special, why we look forward to it with such delight, and why it is, in so many ways, a day set apart. Because it is a day when we put other things aside and become keenly aware, with all our heart, of family, friends and all our blessings.  Indeed, on this one blessed day, we are conscious of our treasures!    
      So, no matter what our trials or struggles, on Thanksgiving, may we truly be "alive" and grateful for the gifts that bless our lives!

TODAY'S  INSPIRED  QUOTATION:  The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts.  No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.  H.U. Westermayer