Giving Thanks

Hello Pacific Ocean.  I've missed you.

This was a different Thanksgiving for me.  I left my husband and kids for a few days and headed to California to visit my dad.  I flew to Santa Barbara, rented a car, and drove up the coast.  This was where I grew up and it was good to be home again.  And it was hard.  My stepmother tragically passed away earlier this year and it's been heartbreaking for all of us who knew her, and absolutely devastating for my dad.

It was good to talk to him.  I spent time asking him about his life growing up in Texas, about his brothers, and about how he ended up in California before I was born.  It was good information to have, and maybe on some level it helped him to talk about it.  I wish I'd had more time to spend there with him.  But my heart was also yearning to get back home to be with my husband and children.

I also got to visit a very dear friend I've known since Kindergarten and have lunch with her.  It was nice to spend time catching up and sharing the goings on of our lives with each other.

What the?????

I don't fly much.  I actually really dislike flying (okay, I'm a weenie). And I can't remember the last time I rented a car. I think it was in the early 80's.  So this was quite an adventure, especially going all by myself.

Our cars at home are all fairly old.  The newest one is from the late 1990's.  So when I rented this new-fangled car, there was a bit of a learning curve.  First off, it was an automatic.  I'm just not used to driving one for the most part.  But this one had the shifter deal in the floor, between the front seats. The one I do drive on occasion at home has this deal on the steering wheel.  So instead of putting this little rental car into drive, I kept washing the windshield.  At least my windshield was clean.  Also, I noticed something peculiar when I got into the car.  There was a little yellow indicator all lit up that looked, to me, like an exclamation point between two parentheses.  I figured since it had an exclamation point, it might be important.  So I called my husband who is a car genius and asked him if he had any ideas.  He didn't.  So I dug around and found an owner's manual in the glove box and looked it up.  Aha!  The manual said this was a low tire pressure warning light.  So I called Mr. Mechanic back and told him that.  His advice was to get out and look at all the tires and see if they looked inflated. And they did. So off I went.  And the trip went well.  Dinged danged indicator lights.  I prefer cars that don't tell you stuff like this. I'd rather find out on my own, thank you very much.

I also had to re-tune the radio in this car.  What came blasting out of the speakers when I started the car was rap. Very loud rap.  Yikes.  So I quickly found one of my old standby's when I lived in California and rocked out as I drove along Highway 101, confident in my mastery of the workings of this little car, clean windshield and all.

When I flew out of Santa Barbara this morning to return home, they announced that they were going to have to de-ice the aircraft.  Everyone laughed.  But it was legitimate.  It was actually below freezing and they had frost on the plane.  I'm sure the ground crew at the airport there isn't used to doing this very often, but they did a stellar job, for which I am most grateful.

Every time I go back to California, I realize how much I miss it there.  It's lovely to me, especially the Central Coast.  And a part of my heart will always be there.  But it is good to be back home with my husband and children, too.  I'm grateful for an easy trip with no real snafu's (we won't count my little adventure trying to figure out how to fill the rental car with gas last night) and a lot of heart-touching moments.  I am so very thankful for my family, my dear and wonderful friends, all the many blessings in my life, and I realize I need to express my thanks more often.  There's a saying I think we've all heard before, but it's so true. What matters is not how many breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.  Flying over the Pacific ocean and the Sierras and the Rockies all in just a couple of hours was breath-taking. (I may be a weenie, but occasionally I sneak a glance out the window from my aisle seat and really do appreciate the view).  Heart-felt hugs from family members and friends that bring tears to the eye are priceless.  And just time spent together, giving thanks, and nourishing my soul on these memories is precious to me.

The Cusp of Winter

We had our first real snow of the season here the other day.  The kids were quickly out in it, rolling a snowball so big that their dad had to help finish it.  The snowman is still on our front lawn, attesting to how chilly it's been.

As the daylight hours wane and the weather turns cold, thoughts turn to the holidays and family and baking, and just fun, quiet times indoors.  We have baked the pumpkins we carved for Halloween and have saved the mush to make cookies and bread and pie.

Since times are tight financially, we'll probably be making baked goods for Christmas presents this year.  In my opinion, this is much more fun, anyway, and may mean more to the recipients.  I feel fortunate that my family loves these simple pleasures and we don't need a lot to be happy.  Great memories are made of such things as these.

During the last few weeks, my daughter, inspired by a class she's taking, has captured a lot of end-of-fall preparedness in nature.  Amid the dying perennials in a flower bed in our yard, there were still a few California poppies blooming.  She took the time to find that there were bees taking advantage of the warm afternoon to collect pollen in these flowers.  The poppies are usually among the last flowers to disappear completely for winter, and come back each spring when they reseed themselves.  After more than a decade after I first planted the seeds here, they've naturalized.  It's a lovely surprise to see them coming up in the spring.

The heavy clouds coming in from the west this time of year are always spectacular, too.  We see them coming over the Rockies and sometimes they disappear entirely before coming right over our house.  Sometimes they look perfectly patterned and it's not hard to image that God is painting them there purposefully.

Soon, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving.  I hope this is a time to reflect on what is truly important to us all, and to give thanks for all the many blessings that have been bestowed on us.  I know I'm deeply grateful for all the beauty around us this time of year as well as the rest of the year. I'm grateful for my family and my kids' health and well-being.  I'm thankful to everyone who has fought for this country and the freedom and liberty we have here.  I'm thankful for this life and all the experiences I've been able to come through and learn from.  And I hope my children learn to appreciate the many blessings we have as well.