Thanksgiving November 2007

Everywhere I see Christmas decorations – in stores, homes, and on buildings. It’s not even December! Did you have a good Thanksgiving? We did. We were in Texas with our surgeon son, who will be deployed to Iraq in January, to visit him and his family. They invited another family and another surgeon to eat Thanksgiving dinner with us. My husband and I cooked the turkey, dressing and gravy, while my daughter-in-law made the salad and vegetables. We had enough to enjoy left-overs for a few days after too.

Thanksgiving implies thankfulness and there are many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for our children and grandchildren. Our children seem to be doing well, the one who had a kidney transplant three years ago, the one who passed surgical boards this year, the ones who live in other countries, and the ones who live not too far from us here in Central Virginia. The grandchildren are fun to play with or interact with.

We had safe flights with no luggage lost on any of our trips this year to Mexico, Vietnam (twice), India, England, Greece, North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, California, and Tennessee. If you have ever been without luggage and needed clothes for a different climate, you will know what I mean by being extremely thankful for the safe arrival of ourselves and our luggage.

Our health is relatively good, for our age anyway. For our age, we are probably very healthy. We have used pedometers to record our daily steps and find that if we don’t purposely walk or do some kind of exercise, we will not reach the desired 10,000 steps a day. My husband is very active and usually takes that many steps or more, while I try to get in 6,000 to 7,000 a day. (I spend too much time on the computer!)

While getting ready for Christmas, remember that life is short: forgive quickly, care deeply, love truly, laugh often, speak kindly and leave the rest to God.