Giving Thanks

Well, let's talk about the weather. It's kind of slushy out today, with a cold that sits in the bones a bit because it's so wet. My preference is sunny and warm or a dry cold with lots of snow on the ground. Anything in between is just mucky and yucky...except that it's good for sitting in front of the wood stove with a cup of hot cider and a ridiculous sweater while you put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

This morning, my house is quiet as the kids and their dad are across the street at Grandma's house. Hard to get up when the house is cold and quiet like this, but there are chickens to feed and coffee to be made. Pulling on my boots and throwing on a sweatshirt (fancy barn jackets are for the pretty folk in the Lands End catalogs), I stomp down to the hen house in the bottom of the barn. Feeding the chickens and breaking the ice on their water, I collect their eggs that are still warm from their bodies, while listening to their soft, appreciative clucks. One of the roosters breaks the silence when he crows suddenly, setting the other one off in a battle of vocal cords that goes back and forth for a few long minutes. Boys will be boys i guess. I open the coop and let everyone out to look for grubs in the soft wet ground where patches of snow melted under yesterday's sun and scratch up any bugs that have taken refuge in the dry barn as winter slowly sets on us in the Northeast Kingdom. I look around at all the cobwebs, old hay bales and various tools that the husband left last time he was down here and sigh...a deep, tired sigh. It's almost as messy as my house...

Now, I'm sitting here at the computer, thinking about all of you, my family. We are everywhere now and some of us are close to each other and some of us are so very far away. Some of us are in foreign lands, some of us are alone (not necessarily lonely) and some of us are sitting right next to the people we love the most. Yet, as hard as this year has been for many of us, it has been full of joy too. I'm thankful for the life i have and the people who raised me. I'm thankful for my health and my memories. I'm thankful for the world i live in and the people i meet every day. I'm thankful that I have a family, that may be thousands of miles away, but a family nonetheless who i love and cherish. So, today, I'm thankful and full of good feelings. Today, I look out my window and feel a deep sense of contentment that I am living in that very moment and not wanting or thinking for more. Today is a very good day indeed.

love, e-