A Happy Thanksgiving To All!

Today is America’s Day to spend just a minute or so reflecting on the many blessing of the past year, and spend another minute or so to pray for blessings to come.

Before Winnie and I head over to Uncle Joe and Aunt Linda’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, I want to reflect on a few personal blessing of the past year.

First, Winnie and I are still together and still (usually) happy with each other. After everything we’ve gone through the past year+, this blessing reaches the level of near miracle…

We’re still in good health, despite all the hardships of the past year.

As much as Winnie still misses her family, I think she’s adapting to life in the US. She’s made some friends, landed jobs, and is finding her way around a country so very different than the one she grew up in. Her ability to adapt to this new life is a blessing for both of us.

Although some family members and close friends have passed during the year, there are many still with us. So we’re blessed with remembering the people we loved, who have now passed, but even more blessed with enjoying the company of those still with us.

Close friends and family are now further away than they were before our move. Although they are missed, there is still a blessing in knowing they are still friends, and still there for us to reach out and touch when we can. And we are blessed with now being closer to other friends and family we were not able to visit with for so many years.

We are blessed with the technology to shrink the distance between people, to make it possible to keep in touch with friends and family half-way across country, even half-way around the planet, as if they only lived next door.

We managed to rebuild our Mississippi home with many personal touches that really made it “Our Home.” We were blessed with having the money and strength to do all the work needed, and finish when so many people in our area were still living in FEMA trailers.

I landed a new job with the potential for growth and personal achievement that I never, ever, would have had staying at the Pascagoula shipyard. Change is difficult, and with a new job comes a lot of growing pains and stress. But I think I’m doubly blessed by having supportive co-workers, and a boss who’ll work with me while I’m working through the growing pains.

Even though the new job took us away from a home I once loved, I see a blessing in starting over again in a new location. The home I lived in for so many years, the home I once though would be my permanent home after years of being a nomad, no longer fit. There were just too many ghosts there, too much baggage weighing me down. As painful as it was to leave, it was still a blessing for the chance to start over.

We were blessed with good finances this past year, despite the many expenses and financial losses we suffered. In comparison with the many people in this country who continue to live at or below “the water line,” we have no reason to complain.

If I were to wish for blessings for the coming year, it would be that Winnie and I find a new home, one that can be the secure nest to continue building our lives together.

And to the people who take the time to drop by this humble website and read my writings, I say thank you. Knowing people actually find my writings worthwhile is very rewarding. And so to our website visitors, friends and families, I wish a year of many blessing to come.

And now, Let’s Eat!