The First Day of Thanksgiving

I've been sick for almost a week, which makes me a little slow in the head. For example, Thursday I went to the Ceramic Genius' house to watch The Office. I came in, looked around, and demanded, "Why do all your clocks say that it's almost 8:15?"

Ceramic Genius: Um, because it is?

Ohhhh. See? Slow.

It's hard to blog when brain function is low. It's especially hard to blog and be amusing or clever. I think I can blog and be sincere even while sick and slow, though. Soooo, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm expounding on some of my blessings. Being sick is a good reason to do it early. So is the fact that on Thanksgiving I'll be on the beach eating hush puppies.

Okay, let's be grateful!

My family is really nice. Every member of my family. Nice.

My parents are two of the most service-oriented people I know. I was really devastated in my late teens/early twenties when I realized that I wasn't automatically going to become as good at nurturing other people as my mom is. You have to work hard to care for people that well. When I was growing up, there were always neighbor babies in our house and it seemed like we were always taking other people's children to church with us or that I was being taken along to visit someone who was sick or alone. In college, I would call my parents on Sundays and ask what they'd been doing and they would have just gotten back from visiting people in the hospital or taking meals to widows. Literally. Visiting the sick and widows. Both of my parents take their responsibilities to other people very seriously, and I admire that.

My parents are also fun. My mom got in trouble at a water park when I was about 10-years-old. She had taken me and my best friend there, and she would wait at the bottom of the slides and pop out and scare us. We thought it was hilarious. The lifeguards did not.

There's a famous story in my family about me and my dad. We were playing charades one night when I was a little girl. My dad was pretending to be a gorilla, and, apparently, he made quite a realistic one, because it scared me and I called out, "Be a butterfly, Daddy! Be a butterfly!" I would really love to see my dad's impression of a butterfly. Maybe we'll play that game at the beach.

So, I'm grateful for my parents.

Tomorrow, I'll be grateful for my siblings.