Thankful Thinkings

It's the day after Thanksgiving.  That means?  No, not a mad rush to the stores.  I don't DO Black Friday.  It means I sit and get soppy thinking about my life.

Well, as you are already aware, this has been a year of change for me.  Moving Stateside again has had its challenges, but, one of the best bits has been spending extra time with my sister and her family.  I am seriously head-over-heels for my nephew.  He's just the most darling little guy on the face of the planet!  I wish I could show you, but I'm honouring my sister and brother-in-law's requests for no photos (at least right now) on publicly available forums.  Anyway, I'm terribly thankful for the opportunity to be living down the street from him and getting to watch him grow.  He's delightful!  And... I've discovered that I'm GOOD at getting him to calm down!  (This is mostly because I don't mind walking in circles around the house and saying "Shhhhhh!" in his ear for hours at a time.)

However, as much as I love my sister (and let's face it, she's the centre of my universe!) and her family... I love my UK family, too.  And I miss them.  I've been terribly homesick for you all.  *sniff*  So, I'm also very thankful that I don't have to choose between my American and my UK families.  I'm so glad I don't live 200 years ago when it was so difficult to move between locations, even on the same continent!  Never mind crossing the ocean!  Heck, I'm even glad it isn't 50 years ago, when travel was still very much a thing for the elite!  I'm also sooooo grateful for my heart-bigger-than-the-whole-world friend, Vee.  She's been the one to make it possible for me to live on two continents.  And I hope she knows that I don't take that for granted.  She rocks, and I love her.

I'm also grateful for the internet and skype.  Yeay for instant communication across the ocean!  It let me stay close with my family when I lived in England, and now that I'm Stateside it's letting me keep up with my English connections.  Not to mention my other widely scattered friends (Australia, New Zeleand, Ethiopia . . .)

I'm also crazy grateful for my parents.  If I need any sort of help, they're the first in the queue to make it happen.  And, I hope they know I realise that means sacrifices (of time, if nothing else!) on their part.  I love them and wouldn't trade them for any other parents.  Ever.  I got the best of the best, and feel sorry for everyone else (except my sister, obviously) who doesn't have my parents!  Neener-neener!  Yes, of course they drive me batty, but when the chips are down, they really come through.  (And, I promise, I'm trying to be more patient!)

And just at the moment, I'm grateful for my awesome Jeep.  We got blasted by a blizzard, and my Jeep handled the weather beautifully!  Also, grateful for indoor heating (and plumbing!)  It's COLD outside, and I'm glad it's NOT cold inside!