Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you and yours are having a wonderful day, filled with family, stuffing, laughter, turkey, stories, pictures, and pumpkin pie! I hope you don’t blow the buttons off your pants and I hope that your cleanup time in minimal.

I want to take a second, though, and share with you what I’m really thankful for. I’m thankful for them all the time, 24/7/365, but, like most of us, I don’t say it enough. But, now I have a blog, and so they can’t get all shy and stuff. So, here goes…

I’m Thankful For…

The Hubster

Wow, am I thankful for the Hubster! If you drew up the perfect guy, then added a few superfluous “flaws” just to make him seem real, this is what you’d get!

This is the guy who supports nearly any crazy idea I get (like knocking out a wall to make room for an obscenely large fridge a few days before Thanksgiving). This is the guy who thinks I’m pretty even when I go the store in my jammies and glasses. The guy who decided to lose 100lbs. and did it! He does anything for anybody, is funny as heck, appreciates my strange sense of humor, and has been known to spend $6 bucks occasionally just to surprise me with a Merb’s Bionic Apple. He gets more excited about my blog work and my small business plans than I do, even. He thinks I’m really smart, even though I don’t know my left from my right. This dude is GOLD and I’m the luckiest girl in the world that he decided to spend the duration of his existence with me!

The Big Brother

My sweetest kid, er, young man, er, adult *gulp*. Anything you need or anytime you need a helping hand, he’s your guy. Even when it aggravates him, he’ll say Yes. He mediates fights, he reads like I do, and, at 21, he’s still my little boy in so many ways – and he’s not ashamed of it. Plus, he loves sports, so he’ll argue them with me ad nauseum. How I got such nice kid, I’ll never, ever know. But, somehow, somewhere, I did something right.

The Little Brother

OK, look at that face – that face will kill you with laughter, if he doesn’t kill you with sarcasm first (definitely gets it from his mother). But, that same kid came up with the idea, on his own, to throw a “graduation” for one of his best buddies that is homeschooled – then proceeded to gather caps, gowns, get a diploma made, lock down a location, and invited enough people to fill a small auditorium. He will torment his little sister to the nth degree, but sit up with her in the middle of the night to watch old TV shows or just listen to her problems. Yes, he’ll sleep until 3pm and be late for school, but if you needed his whole paycheck, he’d give it to you. He’s like The Batman of Nice.

The Girl Child

I don’t even know where to begin with The Girl Child. The Little Brother once described her as such: “Of all of us, her light shines the brightest” and he was right. She’s accomplished, freaky smart, successful, creative, funny, incredibly independent, and an Original. But, she’s so much more than all that even. She’s literally stood up to bullies in a crowd to defend one of her own. She’s never refused an ear or a shoulder to a friend in need. She helps her grandmother and her great-uncle without being asked. If there is an opportunity to volunteer in her community, she takes it. But, she’s the same girl who forgot to tell her mother that she helped write the winning proposal that garnered her school a $5000 grant (I found out when a local newspaper called to interview her). I hammer a nail straight, I’m, like, GO ME! She wins a grant and forgets about it. I adore her.

The BFFs

That’s me with my three BFFs. I have laughed with them, cried with them, pissed them off, gotten mad at them, and gotten in plenty of trouble with them. We have helped raise each others’ kids. To me, they are more like sisters than friends. Without them, the landscape of my life would be so bland. Together, we are The Laughing Too Loud In Public, Dancing Too Crazy, Drinking Too Much, and Giving Til It Hurts Sisterhood. On my personal Facebook page, they are simply known as The Usual Suspects and I love them.

The Mum-In-Law

My little Scottish mum-in-law is one of those people that you can’t imagine how you got lucky enough to score her as your in-law. She fed me the only food that would stay down when I pregnant with my first baby – for eight months. She keeps the whole family together with mandatory Sunday Frys. She always has a chore for one of us to do, but never comes right out and tells you directly. She tells the funniest stories, but doesn’t know why they are funny. She lets me do anything to her house and thinks it’s brilliant. I hang out with her just because I want to. She’s thinks of me as her own daughter and I’m still in awe of that, twenty-plus years later.

The Sis-In-Law

That picture is pretty much par for the course when I’m with my sister-in-law. She loves my kids almost as much as I do. She’s my gossip buddy, too, and we aren’t ashamed of it. Some of my biggest bellylaughs ever have been with her. She calls me to remind me of dates she knows I’m going to forget (like St. Nick’s, which I can never, ever remember, for some reason). She tries her best to keep me up-to-date on girl stuff, so I know what the heck my Girl Child is talking about. She’s a real sister to me.

My Brothers

If my brothers were any more different, they wouldn’t even be related. My oldest brother is simply The Standard. He adores his niece beyond reason. Loves his nephews. Looks after his two brothers. He’s the bar that our family strives to achieve. My middle brother grew his hair out and endured all kinds of hippy comments and teasing, just to cut it to donate to Locks of Love. My youngest brother, just a year older than my oldest kid, has never met a stranger and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him less than kind and smiling. I’m not sure, but I don’t think he even has bad moods! If you meet nicer guys, I’m probably gonna have to call shenanigans, cuz they don’t exist.

My Online Friends

This one might sound odd, but I actually have a group of friends who I’ve met online and become really close to – Ruth, Tara, Trijnie, Christine, Alan, Lisa, Nora, and Paula. I dream of getting together with these folks someday, but until then, in our private messages that go on forever, I find so much joy and laughter and learn so much. I look forward to getting online just to virtually hang out with them.

And last, but not even remotely least…

My Blog Readers

If you guys had any idea of how much you inspire me, you’d be flabbergasted. Every time you share your thoughts, your creativity, and your encouragement, you literally inspire me to move closer to my dreams and that you bother to do it amazes me every time. Each and every one of you who has followed my Facebook page, my Twitter page, my Pinterest boards, or subscribed to this blog in any way, I’m, like, wow! and kind of get all Sally-Fields about it. You make me want to do more, write better, share more, and give more. So, yes, I’m very, very thankful for you all.

(I would love for you to come back to visit, so please SUBSCRIBE using one of the buttons I have up there at the top on the right. And be sure to find me on Facebook for behind the scenes stuff and general goofiness. I’m on Twitter, too, but be warned – I have been known to accidentally tweet-bomb during baseball seasonl!)

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