a day of what?  A day of harvest festival, celebrated mainly by North America, treasured by most as a day of gorging and then grazing on the remains of the feast throughout the day and at times, leftovers for the next few days. 

Today will be a continuance of life as I know it, a bit of stress as I strive to crush 27 hours into 24, a fantastic wake-up to incredible coffee – the best coffee in the entire world is Maxwell House French Roast, bar none, and believe me I’ve tried lots of coffees, everyone that drinks mine loves it the best – and looking out my window at my recently acquired backyard as I begin checking email, thinking articles to publish, things to do in normal household living like bill paying, cleaning, a shower for me, an exercise routine I’ve returned to, receiving texts and emails from friends and family wishing me a great day, perhaps breaking the law by playing online poker for a few hours as I write and work, and those are the top spots of what will happen.

I won’t have a turkey or a big meal.  That’s not because the opportunity is not there, it is.  I have many choices in most areas of my life.  I drove into Vegas yesterday afternoon and saw my kicking buddy Riot and took him the Wii game ‘Wall-e’ (I thought to keep it out here for his visits but it makes me physically ill to play it due to motion sickness issues).  Then I met Marie at the Palms and we played poker for a few hours and we opted for the coffee shop and those great onion rings as our main course and I had a burger as a side dish and hers was prime rib.  What a fantastic way to spend some hours away from home and I’m truly thankful for that opportunity.

And that, my friends, is the point of this post.  Rarely does a day go by that I am not thankful for the gifts I have received in this life.  The list of great gifts could go on for countless pages and to a lot of you, you wouldn’t ‘get it’ but they are wonderful treasures to me.

One of my biggest treasures is the wonderful body I was given to carry my spirit in this life.  It’s an incredible work of magnificence that has a little too much body fat on it (thanks to my gluttony) but has carried out all of my bidding for 61 years and still rebuilds each day to continue my wishes.

In my youth I never really appreciated the saying, “If you have your health, you have everything.”  Never were truer words spoken.  To be able to type this, see it as I type it, enjoy my incredible cup of coffee and the aroma of it, know that if I want to go out and load a wheelbarrow up with gravel, using a shovel and the strength of my body, and push that wheelbarrow to its destination and have the strength to lift it high enough to dump it, then move more crushed rock and tiles and lay it all out (half way even/level to boot), then put a uniquely cool twist in my locks that everyone comments on, then kick the shit out of my opponents boxing on the Wii, and cook, feed myself, clean, hitch up the coach if I want to pull out, hug someone I love, hug someone I just met because I feel we both need it, write a story, trip out without drugs…OMG…if you don’t get the picture of blessings that unfold before me, you are in trouble with life.

Some days I whine, because that is human nature.  Some days I cry because the circumstances make my heart hurt and my day feels bad.  Some days I cry because I am so damn happy.  But most days, at the end of my waking hours – and even at intervals in between, I thank God for all the wonderful treasures I have.  Those wonderful treasures always start with my health and choices of my life’s vessel, then go to my children and grandchildren, my brothers and sisters and their families, and move on to other things.

So…as Thanksgiving becomes just another day past here in a few short hours, keep in mind that you can enjoy it all year long.  And you can have your bird and eat it too, on any day of the year.

Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing life with me.