Thankful Thoughts: Thanksgiving Day

So here we are, at Thanksgiving Day.  Today I'm thankful for:

• My family, my mom and dad and sisters and brothers, and time together with them, which I don't (can't) get enough of.
• Twilight: Breaking Dawn.  I've always felt like this book, though in many ways the most bizarre, was also the key to the whole series (more on this later).  Got to see the movie tonight.  Good fun.
•  Turkey.  My sister and her husband's fabulous mashed potatoes.  Green beans.  Cranberry sauce. Gravy.  Pumpkin Pie.  All corn free, classic and delicious.
• Sunshine.  It was 25 degrees Celsius here today.  What a relief from the Vancouver drippy drearies.
• Red wine.  Tart like berries on my tongue.
• This moment of quiet before bed.  The whole house still (all 8 adults and three kids).

Thankful Thoughts: Combating the Darkness

It's late tonight, the little clock on my computer says 11:22 pm (since it, like my body, still thinks I'm on the West Coast), and my watch, actually set to the place where I am, says 1:22 am.

But tonight I'm thankful that in the past few days I've had a chance to catch up.

I've caught up on rest because my mom has graciously watched Lucy in the mornings.

I've caught up with my mom, listening to her stories and telling her some of my own.

I've caught up with myself a little bit, remembering precious things and thinking about where I am and what's next.

I've caught up on my Google Reader Queue.  Here are a few posts that really spoke to me:

My friend Mike writes in his post Seasonal Affective Disciplines about the things we Vancouverites turn to during the LONG winter nights for comfort (coffee, alcohol, Vitamin D supplements) and how to fight the darkness:

Maybe it’s because I’m now in my fourth Vancouver winter, but vitamin D doesn’t seem to be doing the trick anymore (nor, sadly, does my regular patronage of both 49^th Parallel and Parallel 49′s respective wares). I find that I’m hungry for something more substantial, for seasonal affective disciplines of significant, radiant effect.

I may have found one.

(You'll have to read his post to find out what he suggests, but it's a good one!)

On the same theme of darkness, so appropriate to this time of year, Kevin writes in a post at To Sir, With Love about spiritually dark times,

My good friend sent me a note this week. He’s in what he says are the darkest days of his life. Then he quoted Abe Lincoln, who confided to a friend, “I’ve got weary that rest can’t reach.”

I know a little of how he feels, having gone through a similar stretch. It came on me unawares, like a mist descending at day’s end, only the next day it didn’t burn off, only grew more opaque. I fought it, but finally gave up, succumbing to the referee’s standing ten count, my gloves too heavy to lift. 

This is a theme that is only too familiar for me.  My situation is different from Kevin's.  Everything is going really well in my life right now, I'm facing Giants, experiencing personal victories, and finding out what God has for me.  But I'm worn thin and fragile.  The tiniest things feel like THE END OF THE WORLD.  We've had a lot of life-transitions and I've had a lot of physical pain this year.  I probably should have taken more Vitamin D (instead of all the coffee and alcohol that even in small amounts seemed to have diminishing and even negative returns).  It's going to take a while to fully catch up.  But that's okay.

So tonight I'm thankful for the chances this week to curl up in a little spot of sun on my parent's living room carpet and soak up the light.  I'm thankful that even if the going is still a little rough, even if it doesn't quite feel like the sun has risen to shine into our Valley of the Shadow, the sky is grey with its promise.  Soon the glow will be rosy pink, and then we will feel the warmth on our face and our eyes will be blinded by the brilliance. (Strange, isn't it, how both the darkness and the light can be so blinding). Sometimes, like Megan at SortaCrunchy, in both the darkness and the light I need to remember the Holy One, and repeat to myself: Blessed be He.

Thankful Thoughts

Eeek!  The week got away from me!  This week I'm thankful for:

1.  Plane tickets to visit my family in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving.  Mama, just a few more days!
2.  The way L makes a "woof, woof" sound when she sees a dog, remembers a dog, imagines a dog, thinks about a dog.
3.  The way Clint googles images of puppies just to make her happy.
4.  Jasmine tea with cream and sugar.
5.  My old cashmere-lined leather gloves on a crisp morning at the park.
6.  Fall leaves blanketing the world.

7.  Christmasy rubber stamps.
8.  Challenging work.
9.  A church home.
10.  Every night, no matter how late, L does eventually go to sleep, and usually stays asleep for the night.  Praise Jesus.
11.  Advil LiquiGels.  For those unfortunate slip-ups when I get corned.

Thankful Thoughts, 2012 Edition

Last year I wrote down Thankful Thoughts as I could remember to throughout the month of November.  I'd like to do that again this year.  Today I'm thankful for:

1.  The reality that sometimes slowing down to help someone in need is really helping you too.  Win-win.
2.  Challah bread fresh out of the oven, smothered in butter and trumping my dinner.
3.  Sitting at a tea party, across the room from my toddler daughter, and stealing glances over to see her sitting, playing, eating, and generally looking so grown up in her sweet frilly dress that it makes my heart fit to burst with happiness.
4.  Her tiny, sloppy kisses and everything else about her.  Especially that one of her first words is "Yeaaah!" (stated with relish) and she clearly got that from me.
5.  Pumpkins.
6.  Books.


Are you keeping a list this month too?  Leave a comment and let me know where to look for it!

Thankful Thought(s) #7

Today, a few days past Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for:

Canadian 24 hour passport services (don't ask... well, you can, but it's a long story that involves a missed flight, a few tears, and baby passport photos)

The chance to be with my family--first all together in one jam-packed house, now staying with my mom and sister for a few extra days.  I've really missed them!

The Hunger Games books, which have provided many hours of enjoyment this weekend.  More on this to come.  I will always think like a literary and cultural critic.

The way Lucy's hands flutter open and closed when she's nursing or thinking or feeling something or reaching out for me in her sleep.  Slowly and rhythmically.  Like a star twinkling or a satellite blinking across the night sky.  My little light in the wee hours.  Or like a flower opening and closing in one of those time-lapse nature videos that speed up our slow universe to show the gentle hum of life all around.  Beautiful.

Thankful Thought(s) #6

 

Today I'm thankful for:

A baby who slept through the night!!

Mornings... haven't seen those in a while.  But Lucy is finally on a schedule where she sleeps at night and wakes between 7 & 8am. Mornings are lovely all over again.

A poppy seed bagel, toasted, with cream cheese and a small pot of peppermint tea (one spoonful of sugar).  All I was missing was the greek-looking blue paper cup and I could have been in my NYC classroom a few minutes before the morning bell.

Two days of autumn sunshine streaming in my kitchen windows and one walk in a chill autumn rain.

 Only 5 more sleeps till I get to see my family in the good ol' US of A.

Thankful Thought(s) #5

Lack of sleep is making me feel a million years old today.  Phew.  But this week I'm thankful for:

1) Our church Home Group Bible study.  On Monday night, C watched the baby so I could go be with our friends and it was so good.  I'm especially thankful for their prayers and encouragement and tangible help to us in the past few months since L arrived.  Worth more than gold!

2) A healthy baby.  L is in the 97th percentile for height and weight... making her the size of an average nine month old.  She has no major health issues and is growing so well!  Up until two weeks ago, she's always been a champion sleeper as well, and I know those days will come again.

3) George MacDonald.  I've been reading his novels when L keeps me up at night (or at least the Bethany House abridged versions--my tired brain can't handle the Scottish dialogue of the original editions at this stage of the game).  They're so wonderfully Victorian as well as theologically wise.  The plots are pretty funny (Romance! Romanticism! Occult! Intrigue!), but the characters are really staying with me.  Especially the wise mentors.  MacDonald really believes in a theology of perpetual growth... that salvation is not some "ticket to heaven" or the relief that we're "frozen chosen" (he was not a fan of rigid Scottish Calvinism), but it is a slow and gradual growth that makes us stronger and better persons--more loving and giving and good (think: C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce).  Good stuff.

Thankful Thought(s) #4

Today I'm thankful for sleep.  The more I learn about sleep--so I can teach Lucy to sleep better--the less and less I can take it for granted.  It is so good to rest, to close my eyes and open them to a new day.

In related news, I'm also thankful for sonnets written about sleep.  Like Sir Philip Sidney's or Wordsworth's (ooh, he wrote two, no three!) or Keats's.  Okay, so they were written by tortured insomniacs, but I can relate.

On a funnier note, I'm also grateful for the skill of writing literature reviews/annotated bibliographies.  You know, the ones that make you summarize and compare arguments and to analyze their usefulness for my project. Lucy had a crazy no-sleep week, so I was running on fumes all week--while trying to figure out a "Plan" for helping her sleep better.  And sleep research can be a little confusing.  There's cry-it-out and no-cry and everything in between.  I just want to know what's normal and how can I help Lucy fall asleep and stay asleep at night. So, bring on the lit review... Oh my, I'm such a nerd.  It really did help to look at more than one book and to write things out though.  Over-educated housewife right here. :oP