Happy Thanksgiving (And Other Things)

Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S. readers and those beyond. Every day should be one in which we give thanks, after all.

And I appreciate your anniversary wishes, the ones here and on Facebook. Our day was made more special by them.

It was an odd day, sort-of. Tom had earlier made a doctor appointment for a second opinion regarding his shoulder, so of course, he was a bit in the dog house for not even remembering that Wednesday would be our anniversary. I waited and waited then finally reminded him on Monday.

Oh well, I would have driven with him to this new doctor, but the office was in a city-like place and I just wasn't up for that so soon after the last time. So I, instead, waited around for the gutter cleaner guys. (What is it with gutter cleaners? We had to call four or five, all of which did not show up. Same thing happened last year.) And now finally our gutters are cleaned (a real blessing) and our chimney is sealed where it leaked once last year after the first thaw.

Then Tom brought home lunch and we watched the old Australian Snowy River tv series which we'd never before seen. And the day became better.

That is, until Tom broke the bad news. Remember how I said his company changed their policy about holidays and now no one has to work them? Well, they tweaked that this past week. Winter holidays must still be worked and now guess who must work 12 hours on Christmas Day?

Gah! Thought I was going to blow a gasket inside my head. I confess, I threw a fit when Tom told me that bit of news, even announced I'm back to hating Christmas (forgive me, please, all you goofy Christmas lovers).

Disappointment! I've never experienced so much disappointment as I have while living in this farmhouse. One thing after another, it seems, week after week, blow after blow.

But you know? One must learn to accept disappointment, deal with it, and discover good things with which to replace it. Otherwise, one will get angry and you know where anger will get you, don't you? Anger will suck all the serotonin out of your head and zoom you right into depression. I've blogged about that before and since then, I've noticed just how true it appears to be. And I so do not want to ever slip back into depression--that is one scary state in which to live. Trust me, I remember my Nevada Years quite well where depression was my constant enemy.

So instead, I'll just be thankful that Tom, at least, gets Christmas Eve off and we can have Naomi--and hopefully Carl, too--over on that day, instead. Then on Christmas Day while I'm sitting out here alone in the countryside, I'll have my memories of the previous day.... and some new books and dvd's to watch.... and most of all, I'll still have Jesus who never, ever leaves me alone.

And oh, how empty this old farmhouse would feel without Him, especially on Christmas!

**************************************

This is neither here nor there, really, but while the gutter guys were up on the roof, we had them install screens over the gutters (also over the barn gutters, too). That way we won't have to rely upon flakey gutter guys next year. Glory Hallelujah. :)