Attitude of Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving to you, dear readers, even if you don’t celebrate! I do one of these lists every year, and every year it is remarkable how much my online friends mean to me. I have laughed at your blogs, had my heart broken by your writing, and been moved to action by your words. Thank you for all the blogs and tweets you’ve put on my screen.

This list is not in any special order (top item aside), just in the order in which I thought of them.

I am thankful my daughter’s gag reflex seems to be abating. Dafina will turn 13 months on Turkey Day, and it remains to be seen what she will eat for dinner.

I had planned to do Baby Led Weaning, but my daughter gagged and vomited up everything that wasn’t finely pureed. I have referrals to the gastroenterologist and a speech therapist (to help with her chewing).

Thankfully, she recently began eating and now very rarely gags, and I’m working at slowly introducing foods. Thanksgiving will be her first time with turkey and fingers crossed she eats it!

I am thankful for Dr. Gopal Gadodia. My mother had a major heart attack when I was 8 months pregnant. One of her arteries was 100% blocked and the other was 90%. She has a lot of health problems in addition to her heart, so her prognosis was grim.

After he placed her first stent, he came out to speak to my father and I. All I remember was how kindly he tried to temper our expectations of her recovery. I know that he has online reviews slamming him for his bedside manner, but he was wonderful to us.

She underwent a second stent two months later and Dr. Gadodia again did a wonderful job. I am thankful that she is still here in 2018 due to his handiwork.

I am thankful that my mother does not have cancer.

During her first hospitalization, my mother was catheterized and began hemorrhaging in her bladder. Some sort of cyst was discovered and abnormalities were found. Several visits to various specialists later, everyone is baffled by how the situation resolved itself. I’m so thankful, because I could not handle having two parents with cancer at the same time.

I’m thankful for this blog.

I’ve been feeling creatively stifled for a while. It’s easy to let creative outlets slide when you have so many responsibilities. But I notice that I’m in a better mood overall now that I have this blog, and I am also writing more stuff on the side. Humans need creativity to fuel their souls.

I’m thankful for my boss having my back.

I don’t want to blog about work (really), but one of my coworkers tried to sabotage me in a rather outrageous manner. I think that anyone with a bit of common sense would have seen through her behavior, but common sense doesn’t always get promoted to the C-suite.

I could have lost my job. For leaving my workspace and not logging off of my computer, I should have lost my job.

Instead, I’m here and she’s not.

I’m thankful for my neighbors.

I’ve lived here for about five years. Prior to this, I lived in an apartment complex where I regretted the “friendships” I had forged. So when I moved into a house, I chose to keep my distance. My neighbors did too.

But after Hurricane Irma struck last year, I looked out my window and saw two of them picking up my yard (I was nine months pregnant at the time and while I had moved the bigger branches, I just wasn’t up to picking up the twigs). Since then, I’ve gotten to know a few more.

I appreciate the hand-me-downs for my daughter. I appreciate that when a package goes astray, the person who receives it returns it. I appreciate that I can exchange my tangerines for avocados. But most of all, I appreciate that I live in a neighborhood filled with good people.

I’m thankful I don’t have to drive for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is the most deadly traffic holiday. More than 800 people died at the hands of alcohol impaired drivers on Thanksgiving between 2012 and 2016. My family is still mourning someone lost to a drunk driver in 2017. I am NOT thankful for the laws that allowed her murderer out on the streets, despite 4 previous DUI arrests.

I get really nervous and anxious in traffic, especially if I have my daughter. I’m happy that my parents are coming over here and it’s a short drive through side streets.

I’m thankful I’m no longer in retail.

I was in retail management until I finally finished my bachelor’s degree six years ago. It’s a profession that gets almost no respect. Retail employees work harder than most people and are widely derided for their perceived lack of education and skills.

I generally enjoyed my job. I loved helping customers pull together outfits, I loved the excitement of setting a sale, I even liked the camaraderie of getting ready for inventory or visits by the bigwigs.

But what I did NOT enjoy was the Christmas season, the time when I dragged my exhausted carcass in to work at 4am (having left the store at 10:15 the night before), only to hear cranky people moan about everything. I would have to smile even when they were hideously rude.

I have mostly fond memories of those years, but the holidays were brutal. Be kind to salespeople.

I’m thankful for bees. Without bees, we go without almonds, okra, onions, potatoes, kiwi, cashews, celery, carambola, Brazil nuts, beets, mustard, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, turnips, gandules (pigeon peas), peppers, papayas, coriander, chestnuts, coconuts, tangerines, melons, oranges, grapefruit, tangelos, coffee, safflower, cucumbers, squash, quince, guar beans (guar gum is widely used as a food stabilizer, toothpaste thickener, binder in medicine tablets, and has many other uses), lemons, limes, persimmons, carrots, cardamom, buckwheat, fennel, cotton, apples, strawberries, sunflowers, flax, lychee, macadamia nuts, mangoes, avocados, lima beans, green beans, passion fruit, alfalfa, cactus, kidney beans, apricots . . . I could keep going, but you get the picture.

If you ever get unwanted bees, please google bee removal or beekeepers in your area before you call pest control! They will remove the colony and you won’t have any lingering pesticides.

I could keep going, but I’d love to hear what my readers are thankful for. Drop me a comment, and don’t forget to subscribe for a free holiday dessert booklet! And remember that I am truly grateful for each and every single one of you.

Thankful

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  1. December 20, 2018

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