Give Thanks Always

This time last year I was thankful for the following: airplanes, a new zip code, the University of Georgia, Dad "kicking the habit", my memory, new friends, old friends, my broken heart, my new computer speakers at work, and God's grace. Turns out I'm still thankful for all of the aforementioned things, plus a few more. Like...my entire family, my puppy, and my job (and the sense of security that goes along with it in these "uncertain economic times"). Today specifically I am also thankful for things like mittens, ibuprofen, good lungs and a strong heart, Burt's Bees lip balm, pain relieving muscle cream, and feet and legs that carry me places...but more on that in my next post.

The truth is, God has blessed me with so much that if I tried to count every single blessing, inevitably I would miss one (or 100). So today (I had a couple of hours this morning to think about this), I determined that throughout this next year I would try to show my gratitude and appreciation for people in my life, acts of kindness and goodwill by these people as well as the tangible things that I am blessed with not just on this day that is set aside for the purposes of acknowledging such blessings but each and every day. (perhaps you all should be thankful that I'm not an English teacher with that run-on sentence)

I mentioned earlier that I'm thankful for my entire family, and we all had the opportunity to gather together last night at Aunt Janie and Uncle Hugh's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. My thankfulness even goes for the ones like him..

With this kind of behavior, obviously he married into the family. We love him anyway though. And he is at least half responsible for some pretty cute kids like this one...

You see, in my family we like to start the talent competitions on the "stage" at a young age and if you can't measure up, well then...

Actually we do have talent in our family in the form of baby cousin Justin. Ok, he's not really a baby anymore, but he's my only cousin who is younger than me so he gets to keep the title. Doesn't he just have the guitar-player look about him?

Or maybe I just think that because he has on jeans with a hole in them. Never mind the fact that he closely resembles Justin Timberlake and they have the same name. Fame is written in the stars for this boy. After the family Thanksgiving dinner we performed a much needed exorcism...

Ok, so actually this isn't funny because after I uploaded this picture I realized that you can't see that every single one of them had some majorly creepy red-eye going on. Getting these children to pose nicely on the stairs (question: why do the adults always make the children pose on the stairs for pictures? Or is that something specific to my family?) was much like herding cats. See...

Meanwhile, as the small children are running amuck on the steep stairs, two sets of parents and their great-grandmother are awestruck over the wonders of the internet...

While all of this was taking place around me, I was busy carb-loading for my big run the next morning...

I'm pretty sure that pound cake doesn't contain the kind of carbs real runners load up on the night before a race, but I'm not really a real runner so it's ok. Besides, I was in good company because Simon likes carbs too...Now if only he would just like people. Happy Thanksgiving!

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." I Thessalonians 5:16-18