Wishing All Those Who Celebrate Thanksgiving a Safe and Happy One!

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This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for family and friends. And also for simple pleasures and happy memories.

Before we moved to the country, my Thanksgiving ritual included cleaning the house before the relatives came. I would put a movie on and have it playing in the background while I dusted, vacuumed and wiped. That movie was more often than not Jumanji (1995).

Jumanji is a classic, great fantasy, and it’s become my go-to Thanksgiving film. (And don’t try to tell me it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. Like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it ends in Christmas, so there.)

After cleaning, I would go outside and rake. There are many oak trees in my old neighborhood, and their last leaves come raining down every year around Thanksgiving. I had a little front yard and it always made me happy to sweep up the leaves and deposit them at the curb. The leaves are picked up by the county and shredded into leaf mold, which the county offers for free to residents. What a great and environmentally friendly service.

Today, my simple pleasures include walks in the country, brilliant blue skies and puffy clouds. And quiet in which you can hear the birds chirp and sing. I’ve heard whippoorwills call in the summer and owls hoot in the night. Wonderful.

And have you listened, really listened, to the sound of rain on a metal roof? It’s very soothing, like a nature lullaby.

What are you grateful for?

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