November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 29 - Friendship

I'm thankful that I am a friend.  Does that sound arrogant?  Well, you can't go around in life always looking at everyone and everything expecting, expecting, expecting without looking within to see what seeds you sow.  Be sure to sow friendship and you will certainly reap friends.  It may take a season before you can enjoy the fruit, but harvest is coming!  Be certain to sow good seeds.

I'm a bit lonely here in my new place.   I usually settle into a church and start making friends there and in the area right away.  It's seems especially hard because my church is fairly far from the house, so most of the people who attend there live on the other side of the lake and are not readily accessible.  I'm not likely to bump into them at the grocery store.  It's a large and busy church, so when I am there it's a bit difficult even for someone with a personality like I have to get my foot in the door with people on a personal level. 

I'm glad to know that it's only a matter of time, because I am a friend.  In fact, I'm a good friend, even a best friend.  Soon, others will know it and I'll be fairly rolling in friends!  I could very possibly be the best friend you have ever had, even if we've never met.  Be a friend.  Be one.  The rest is easy.

"A friend loveth at all times..." Proverbs 17:17

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November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 28 - Stuff

I'm thankful for all my stuff.  I am not a big one for fancy modern equipment and conveniences.  It's been my experience that with the effort of acquiring and maintaining the stuff, and having places to keep all the stuff, guarding and providing for the stuff's operation, and upgrading or replacing the stuff periodically, it's hardly worth having the stuff at all!

I tend to look for things that don't require batteries or even electricity if I can find them.  I like hand operated tools and I prefer time tested methods.  If I can use something simple and durable that costs me nothing but the original purchase price, then there's simply less opportunity for things to go wrong.

I prefer older ways of doing things, too.  Remember "cooking"?  Not buying hamburger helper and heating it at home, but actually making noodles with flour, cooking meat and making my own sauce to go on it. If I had it my way I'd grow the ingredients.  Cutting out the middle man and any extra steps gives me a greater amount of control over quality and cost.  It's sometimes and adjustment, but once that adjustment is made it's really not an inconvenience, and it's just a better and more efficient way, to my way of thinking.

That's all fine and good to a point, but some conveniences are so inextricably ingrained in my life that I don't even think about it or consider doing it any differently, let alone give thanks for it like I should.  For instance: the bathroom.  I have hot water, an indoor toilet, a sink and a toothbrush.  Can you imagine having to draw water and heat it on a stove, pour it into a basin and wash up?   How about toilet paper?  NOT an optional item.  I vaguely remember the days of outhouses,  and I can tell you from my very tiny bit of experience with them that there's plenty of reason to be thankful for a bathroom.

If you ever feel like you've fallen on hard times or that life's dealt you a bum hand, stop and think of all the people who don't even have fresh water to drink or can't get inside out of the elements to sleep at night.  They're everywhere.

I'm thankful for a soft bed and running water.  I'm happy about my tiny refrigerator even if it sometimes freezes my lettuce or melts my juice concentrate.  I'm thankful for a sink full of dirty dishes because it says three wonderful things: I have a sink, I have dishes, and they are dirty because I have had food.  I thank God for all I have.

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November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 27 - Drawing

I'm thankful that I can draw, which means, of course, that I should be doing it!   

I love to draw.  I'm not half bad at it, either, but I haven't taken the time to do much of it in years.  I set it aside when I started having kids and juggling life.  You know how it is.  

Lately I've been drawn toward it again, no pun intended.  I have all I need to start, but for some reason I'm just not jumping in there and doing it.  It seems like I have to have something in mind to draw before I start, and I can never think of a good subject.  I know I don't.  I could just draw whatever is nearby until I reacquaint myself with the motions and the equipment, but I just haven't done it.   

Then there's the ever present "blank page" to contend with.  I don't want to put that first mark on the new paper.  That's just as dumb as not knowing what to draw, yet it's almost an invisible line I can't cross.  I had this great idea (that I haven't tried) that I should put a thin watercolor wash on a few sheets of drawing paper just to take away the blankness of it.  Maybe I should just scribble a few background lines: anything to shut that screaming blank page up long enough to put a pencil on it.  When I do something I'm not ashamed of I'll post it.

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November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 26 - Laughing

Thank God for laughter!  
Most of my life growing up things were pretty tense.  I always tried to fill in any stressful periods with conversation to keep the stress level as low as I could.  If things took a bad turn I would always try to divert the bad situation by adding something lighthearted or a dose of comedy if I possibly could.  Even as a child I knew that if we could just start laughing we could fix just about anything.

Now that I'm all grown up with a home of my own, there is a lot of laughter in our house.  It just comes naturally now.  Sometimes we laugh so hard we can barely breathe!  Tears roll!  We squeak and wheeze!  Sometimes it's not even funny, but we laugh like idiots anyway.  Who hasn't stayed up too late and laugh hysterically at everything?  Or nothing? 

A friend of mine said to me once, "Christians don't have to drink to have a good time, we just have to stay up late."  Too true!  too true!

Laughing.  It's probably my favorite thing, more even than eating and sleeping, and that's saying a lot!

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." ~ Proverbs 17:22  

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November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 25 - Pets

(Beth)

I am thankful for pets.  How can anyone not believe in a loving God with things like pets here on this earth?  He must really love us to bless us with such wonderful and loving companions.

We always have a dog or two.  My folks had an old man cat, Uncle Joey, the kids called him.  I was never a huge cat fan until Joey, and he changed my view of cats.  I'm probably going to have to get one for my dog.

I can't imagine a home with no pet.

Handy Dandy Back Saving Tool

With our recent move and all, my only fall harvest this year has been pecans.  I found a helpful little tool.  It's definitely a back saver!  Sorry, I haven't figured out yet how to upload a video directly to my blog, so I'm just enclosing a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2sSkpoK2Ew&feature=youtu.be

I tried to embed it, but it changed the dimensions of the player and I don't know how to fix it.

November - 30 Days of Thanksgiving: Day 24 - Casual Mode

I started to call this "Eating With My Fingers." My husband might call it "Underwear Time."  You know, that time where you can sit around in your jammy pants or your underwear if you feel like it.  My husband might not like me saying that here, because then it sounds like he sits around the house in his underwear.  I have never known him to do that, ever, but he calls it that because it's that time and place where he could if he wanted to. Whatever we call it, I'm thankful for the time spent comfortably with the people we are closest to and safest around, where we can let our hair down and relax.

It's the where the kids sometimes raise up a forkful of Ramen noodles so high over their faces that the foot long strings dangle over their mouths and drip broth all down their chins and necks.  I give them the obligatory scolding winding up with,  "You'd better never do that in a public place!"  It's the mom's job to say it.  Carry on.

Burping is a contest.  The dog licks our faces.  We joke and laugh and make up weird games.  The "would you rather" game is popular.  It goes something like this, " Would you rather have a spider in your mouth or a mouse in your sleeping bag?"  You choose the scenarios.  It's actually a funny game, but you can imagine it gets out of hand sometimes.

We make strange noises.  We sing really loudly.  We yell, a lot.  Not necessarily angrily, or at each other, we just yell.  A lot.  We make up weird names for each other and joke about our weird habits and idiosyncracies.  We scramble words up and then use them.  We talk in fake accents. We eat nuts and the shells fly all over the place.  We eat popcorn and I have to pick it out of the couch cushions the next morning.

We have our schedules and serious times and work times and all that.  We have special rules for when company comes over and we "behave ourselves" in public.  We also have our house rules, and I insist on some basic manners, but here in the home, the best of all places, we are at ease.

Pence Home: Casual Mode.

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