Pet pig puts wind up family as farting prompts gas leak fears.  News.com.au.

A PORTLY pig with flatulence triggered a minor emergency near Bendigo this week when smells wafting from the 120kg porker sparked fears of a potentially dangerous gas leak.

Two Country Fire Authority tankers and 15 firefighters turned out in darkness to search the source of the leak at a property at Axedale, east of Bendigo. But the likely culprit was soon sniffed out, the pet sow startled from slumber in the dead of night.

She is believed to be a friendly and docile animal, a much loved children’s pet, possibly in need of a change of diet.

Flatulence sufficient to rouse emergency crews from their slumber.  Bet they were excited.   

See:

• http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26407128-13762,00.html

It seems really strange not to chronicle my every thought in some sort of journal, now.  Every time I have a thought, I watch it pass and think, “Damn, what a shame.”  Not everything is worth keeping, but for one month…for one month, keeping everything should be allowed.

Had a celebration in honor of my winning NaNoWriMo.  I don’t think anyone really knew that it was for NaNoWriMo except for Spence, but it never really came up again.  I did awkwardly bring it up a few times hoping for a toast.  Eh.  The campfire and smores were good enough.  We snagged some marshmallows, a 2 liter bottle of Canada Dry Ginger Ale (those recent “real ginger” commercials worked on me), graham crackers, and four different kinds of chocolate:  Hersheys Milk, Dark, Crunch Bar, and Mr. Good.  Oh wow, Mr. Good was definitely the best in smores.

We set the top half of a Webster grill down on the floor and used it as a firepit.  It was quite effective and ingenious.

Have to remember I’m not going for word count anymore.  In fact, Elegance is quite the opposite.

Thanks for coming out, guys.  It meant a lot to me.

Alice came over today. First we watched “White Collar” with my parents. (crap. i was gone for the eight oclock episode. eh well.) We then migrated to the kitchen and she talked, i listened. Somewhere we got around to the Bible, to mathew, to john, to luke, and then to mark. The genealogy of Christ. The four women mentioned in said genealogy–Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Mary. Talked about being a whore. That led to the virgin birth, which led to the Holy Spirit, which led to sex. We talked about marriage, and the  need God has put in us for it, but also his ability to fulfill that need. We talked about Jesus. How he knows us. How he works differently in our lives because we’re different people. We talked about the miracles he did while he was on earth. We talked about how amazing he is. Went back to my room and decided we’d listen to the next PB&J (she’d only heard the first one) We hadn’t gotten far into it before she grabbed the remote and paused it and cried “YES! but i don’t WANT to need that! Why can’t Jesus just be ENOUGH?!? It would be so much easier that way…” I agreed, we laughed, and on with the message. After it was over, we talked about abortion. Homosexuality. Lust. Temptation. It was a fantastic conversation, and we both got very excited about the Bible. Somehow, we got back around to sex. Song of Solomon. Alice: “You know, it’s written so poetically, so beautifully. It isn’t derogatory or vulgar at all. But no doubt about it, it is was it is. It’s so GRAPHIC. You read it and think, ‘no way did i just read that in the bible!’” Hehehe. It’s awesome to watch God’s work in her life. A few months ago she was asking the question, “I don’t get it. You people talk about how great it is… but what’s so good about sex?” and now she’s excited. It’s neat to hear her say things like, “He is rancid. I’m waitin’ for the gourmet stuff.” (peanut  butter, that is) We talked about skeevy guys. On impulse, decided to go see a movie. I made fun of it through the whole thing, and Alice would say, “DUCK! I know he’s an Onan, but will you  just SHUT UP!” or when i said i didn’t like one of the actors, she raised her eyebrows and said, “What? too crunchy for you?” har har har. Yes, Alice. Rancid, crunchy peanut butter. No good. We spent the car ride home laughing and arguing about the movie, blaring the radio and singing really loud. It occurred to me on the way home that i was being a teenager with a fellow teenager, and it was fun. Yay for immaturity, that actually puts me at the maturity level that would be just above normal for my age. Woot woot! It’s hard for me, often uncomfortable and awkward, to act my age. It isn’t natural. But i’m trying to  be better at it, it seems very important. Tonight i got to act my age… mostly. Thank you Alice.

My husband and I were both feeling a little stressed this morning, trying to get the turkey, pie, cranberry relish, and salad ready to pack in the car and get over to grandma’s house for the big meal. We have two boys 4 and 10. My four-year-old asked me to play with him repeatedly and had already heard enough “just a minutes” to last a week and it was only 11:30 in the morning.

My husband was trying in vain to get our son to take a bath, but he was NOT going for it. He was digging his heels in and was not going to budge. I could tell my son needed a good cry, and I could tell neither my husband nor myself felt we had the time or good attention to listen to him.

I suddenly had an idea. He had been watching me focus most of my attention on this silly bird for the last 24+ hours. (I did a brining process that takes a whole day. It seemed like it would be simple until I got into it.) I asked him, “Will you be my little turkey? Can I wash you in the sink to get you ready for cooking?” He loved the idea. He climbed up in the kitchen sink and I poured water all over him using measuring cups, stirred the water around, and ‘basted him’ with the clean baster brush, with lots of talk about what a sweet little turkey he was, what spicing I was putting on him, etc. I kept talking about which parts of him might be the tastiest. He giggled and giggled while he soaked up all that good attention and the tension in both of us disolved away.

We were both more relaxed afterwards as I gathered my clean boy into the ‘oven’ (towel) to dry off. Such a good reminder to me that just ten minutes of play can change the whole day.

- Kirsten Nottleson in Austin, TX

<a href=”http://kajalkumarcartoons.blogspot.com”>http://kajal.tk</a>:)
<a href=”http://kajalkumar.tk”>http://kajalkumar.tk</a>
<a href=”http://sahibaat.blogspot.com”>http://sahibaat.blogspot.com</a>

After I wrote my post on Play for The Next Chapter’s trip through The Joy Diet by Martha Beck, I hit a wall.  In fact, it was the day I should have posted on Laughter.

The writing on that wall clearly said, “outputted out.” 

That immediately preceded Connection week and my week’s vacation–well, staycation–from work.

Time has been short this month, and energy for writing blog posts, shorter.  Basically, during weeks 8 through 10, I tried to just keep in mind the main subject of each chapter, the “ingredient.”

Ingredient 8: Laughter

Laughter week was a lot of fun!  My sister and I do this silly thing where we do funny impressions of cartoon characters, public figures, movie characters, people we know, etc.  We laugh uproariously over these.  I instigated a lot more of that.  I also watched a lot of YouTube videos, this one in particular, which never fails to make me laugh:

Seriously, laughing babies never fail me.  Their laughter is always contagious!

I tried laughing for no reason as Martha suggests, but it didn’t work out very well.  I stuck to the sure-fire laugh-inducers.

Ingredient 9:  Connection

Truthfully, I didn’t read the connection chapter until Wednesday this week.  Shame on me.  But, like I said, during the appropriate week I did hold the concept of connection in mind.

This ingredient’s week landed after I hit the aforementioned wall.  I spent Connection’s week mostly connecting with myself and “filling the well”, so to speak.  I tried getting at the root of what had me so worn out.

As usual, it was imbalance.  I was in constant “output” mode at work.  I was trying to do NaNoWriMo and keep up with the Joy Diet and keep up with my friends and so forth.  I had, as I often do, gotten overly ambitious for what I could reasonably get done this month.  Also, I was flagging in taking my time to do Nothing.  I’m still not entirely back on that horse, but I’m getting there.

I have to say that do love what Beck suggests about connecting with strangers.  My job requires me to connect with strangers, usually strangers in all manner of negative emotional states, many of whom are  also the sort that will totally drain your energy if you let them.  I’m going to try in the coming weeks to find that Nothing stillness while I’m dealing with them.

She makes other solid suggestions in the connection chapter as well, though I don’t think I’m quite ready to implement it in its entirety, for instance risking openness with the family members who drive me crazy.   As an introvert and people pleaser, that one has me shaking in fear a bit.

I can see Connection Step 2 being extremely useful for me going forth, namely learning to tell myself the truth while interacting with others, and answering the questions Beck suggests we ask ourselves. 

Ditto for identifying what I want from a particular relationship, though, in most cases, I already know.

Ingredient 10:  Feasting

How much do I love the chapter on Feasting?  I just finished reading it this morning, but I realized that I already do a lot of what is suggested, just less often.

Also, I like the expanded definition of feasting.  I think a lot of people, myself included, get caught up in narrowly defining and conceptualizing things.  For instance, we think a feast has to be a big meal. 

Yesterday, after the Thanksgiving food coma wore off–we had our meal at midday–I feasted on beauty in the form of music and danced.   It was glorious!   I sat down and wrote in my journal about how it made me feel, as though I were writing to the band, and thanked them for putting their songs out there.  I’m going to have to do that much more often!

I regularly feast on books and movies, and, to a lesser extent, TV shows.  I already keep a gratitude journal, though I haven’t been writing in it daily as of late.  (Must get back on that horse, too.) 

This chapter also contained perhaps my favorite quote of the whole book, something I definitely needed to hear:

You were born to be open and honest and brave and playful, to laugh often, to love much, to be loved much in return.  You were born for joy.  Sit.  Feast on your life.” — Martha Beck, The Joy Diet, p. 226

In Closing…

This has been a good experience, on the whole.  I know I’m behind in posting, behind in commenting, and behind in implementing everything, but I’ve learned a lot and gotten clear on a lot of things in the past 10 weeks, partly due to this book and reading the posts and comments of fellow Joy Dieters.  I have a lot of ideas of how to work joy into my daily life that I didn’t have before, a few more “tools in the toolbox” if you will.

Thank you, Jamie, for leading us in this experience, and thank you to my fellow Joy Dieters for reading and commenting!  You made me think and smile and feel supported.

…for little brothers.  Coming from a family of nine, it’s difficult to make time for six siblings, two parents, the dog, the ugly dog, a horse and my recently acquired in-laws.  Sometimes quality time comes unexpected places.  Like taking Nicholas with me on a last-minute pre-Thanksgiving market run.

While the heater hummed and the radio whispered in the background, Nicholas wondered out loud..

“Heather – do you ever cuss in your mind?”

“No Nicky, I don’t.”           …Usually it’s out loud buddy.

“I do sometimes.  But I only say Crap, and that’s because one of my sisters says it.”

..

“But I always repent afterwards.”

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The best medicine is hearing people laugh out loud. Really, really laugh. From the belly. The kind of laugh that makes you smile in spite of yourself.

The Tom and Jerry cartoon has my kids doing just that this morning. The two of them are having their Saturday morning relaxation in front of the box (relax, they are only allowed TV on the weekends) guffawing with laughter every 10 or 20 seconds.

And it is fantastic.

I am on the deck with a coffee and the Saturday morning paper (although it took me longer to read the Dymocks book brochure that it did to read HB Today). Sarah and Lachlan have run out a couple of times to regale me with tales of something that happened (as if I have not seen them many times before in the old World of Disney at 6pm on a Sunday!!!!)

While I am fresh thinking about HBToday, an old colleague of mine called Roger Moroney had a great twist to an Erebus story on the front page today. He had interviewed Don Wood, whose parents perished in the crash of Air NZ flight TE901 at Mount Erebus 30 years ago.

Mr Wood has the watch his father was wearing on the plane and it hasn’t gone since the crash… until yesterday.  No, not a story from the Twilight Zone, Roger reported. Mr Wood had taken the watch out, as he had done many times before, and placed it on the table. Roger wrote:

Don agreed for it to be used in a photograph, and after that he placed it back on the table and began talking about how he lost his parents on that flight. After a couple of minutes, he stopped talking and simply gazed down at the watch. “It’s going,” he said quietly. His wife Cheryl came in and told Don his hands were shaking. “That hasn’t gone for 30 years,” he said, pointing at it. Understandably it took a few minutes for him to get his thoughts back together as he watched the thin seconds hand of the watch go round.He said he had had the watch out many times through the years, and had once even tried to get it to go – but the winder appeared not to work and its hands had never moved. Until yesterday.

Freaky aye!

And last on my musings for today is the 40th celebration on TVNZ on Thursday of the introduction of One Network News (funny to watch TV3 by mistake last night (forgot to turn it over after Home and Away!) and see it was celebrating 20 years since its inception).

The old newsreaders reading the news were cool – especially Dougal Stevenson.

I loved this comment on a blog in the Dominion Post this morning (and on stuff.co.nz) by Jane Bowron. 

My favourite of the roundabout is Dougal. His voice is still authoritative. If there is an end-of- the-world broadcast kept in readiness for the final moments on Earth, I hope TVNZ has chosen Dougal to announce it. With his sense of humour he would probably add the codicil that, post-apocalypse, normal transmission will resume as soon as possible.

Very cool.

Enjoy your weekend – I plan to!

So … for the umpteenth consecutive week, I have managed to show up late to Folk Thursday. But to redeem myself, I offer you a very special video:

The lead-in takes about a minute, but stay with it, because this is quite possibly the highlight of Fred Eaglesmith’s distinguished songwriting career. I really hope he plays at the Woody Guthrie Festival one of these days.

Emily

Holiday Shopping Season Revs Up With Black Friday Sales.  Fox.  Maybe this will jump start the economy?

Black Friday.  The day after Thanksgiving.  The official start to the Christmas shopping season.  The mad dash to the stores to buy the deals of the century. 

Your local vendors wish to apprise their customers of the following public service announcement. 

In good spirit, of course.

“Free ride in a police car.  If you shoplift at this store.  Courtesy of your local police department.  Notice!  Closed circuit television.  Recorded.  24-Hour surveillance.”
Image courtesy of http://eatliver.com/i.php?n=4977.

See:

• http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,577167,00.html
• http://eatliver.com/i.php?n=4977

Imagine seeing one of those cowboys in a bareback bronc riding rodeo competition with a pair of these on.

And not the rodeo clown either.  Feet Boots.

Image courtesy of http://www.allweirdpics.com/pictures/Feet_Boots.htm

See:

• http://www.allweirdpics.com/pictures/Feet_Boots.htm

One of my friends, Raghavendran from the Mech dept. had a problem when he reinstalled his Windows XP while having a dual boot of XP and Ubuntu. Since,  XP  was not loading he called to me for help in recovering his XP.This was via gchat!

I started of with asking him explicitly “What does your menu.lst” contain? and he replied “Empty” . Well, then i came to realize that his system was majorly screwed up. Hence, i started dishing out a flurry out commands to debug the issue, and asked him to give me the output. This process took half an hour and i constructed an entire new menu.lst for him. Before i was going to send it to him, just out of curiosity i asked him to run a “ls /boot/grub”, and check if a file menu.lst exists. and HE ANSWERED YES!!

I was quite angry then for making him waste my time, but still continued to help him. I asked him to modify his menu.lst so he could boot it properly. His system was yet not booting.

Then came the FINAL REVELATION!! It turns out the the problem was on the DESKTOP, while he was running all the debugging commands on his LAPTOP !!! At that point I did not know whether to LAUGH or CRY ?

Now I understand the reason why newbies get flamed in discussion forums for asking dumb doubts. It is not because of the nature of the question alone, it is prejudice based on their past experiences

Hey. I realize that I said I was gonna write about tattoos today, but we all know I’m a liar that never keeps her word. So I’m gonna talk about something else, but don’t worry because it’s gonna be just as great as tattoos. Maybe even more great.

So, I love to have to fun. I know that seems stupid to say, because who doesn’t love to have fun?Actually, you would be surprised.

Everyone says they love to have fun, but not that many people actually do it. Yeah, I know that different people have different ideas of fun, so just because somebody doesn’t think trying to catch Skittles and gummie worms in their mouth is fun like I do, that doesn’t mean they’re lame or anything. It actually probably means that I’m the lame one. But I thought  everyone agreed that having fun=smiling and laughter. So I don’t understand why everybody isn’t hilarious and cracking jokes all the time. Laughter is what Life is made of, you guys! That’s why they both start with the same letter.

I guess what I’m trying to say in a roundabout way here is that I love the funny. Not to brag or anything but uh, the Kid has been known to make people around her laugh really hard every so often. And the thing is, I’m not even FUNNY funny most of the time. I’m corny funny, goofy funny, lame funny, and WTF funny, but very rarely am I funny in the traditional clever, witty sense although I do have my moments! I’m sorry, I’m rambling. What I’m saying is that the key to making people laugh is to make yourself laugh first. Me, I crack myself up on a daily basis. Why, just this morning I had a sidesplitting one sided conversation with my neighbor’s dog that had me rolling breathlessly on the floor with tears streaming down my eyes. Was it really that funny? Doubt it! But I believed in myself and my ability to be hilarious, I made myself laugh, and therefore I thought I was funny. Which in turn led me to convince other people that I was funny, and now everyone wants to hang out with me and be my friend because they are always inexplicably laughing and smiling in my presence.  Yeah. If you wanna be cool as the Kid, you gotta put in work. SOOO find something to make you laugh and then make it make other people laugh, feel me?

What makes people laugh is an unexact science. What makes you laugh might not make me laugh and visa-versa. I tend to be a serious person and not prone to laughter. I’d like to change that especially after experiencing a day of laughter at our Thanksgiving feast.

“You laugh at me because I am different, but I laugh at you because we are all the same” (anonymous).

Have fun taking this True or False Quiz on Laughter.

1. True or False. The study of humor and laughter is called humology.
2. True or False. People laugh thirty times more often when they are with others compared to when they are alone.
3. True or False. As children go through developmental stages what makes them laugh changes.
4. True or False. Laughter is contagious.
5. True or False. Laughter is physically good for you.  
6. True or False. An adult laughs 400 times a day whereas a child laughs 17  times a day.

Click below on (more…) to read the answers.

1. False. The study of humor and laughter is called  Gelotology.
2. True. Both adults and children laugh primarily during social interactions with others. Click here to read this article on Why Do People Laugh?
3. True. What is funny at one developmental stage just isn’t funny at another. Click here to read this article about what makes young children laugh.
4. True. Laughter certainly is contagious. That’s why sound tracks are used.  Click here to watch my favorite laughing baby youtube viedo. Click here to watch 4 laughing babies. You just can’t help but LAUGH when you watch. 
5. True. Laughter makes an obvious difference on the physical body. Laughter lowers blood pressure, reduces pain, boosts the immune system, reduces stress hormones, and releases endorphins. In fact, laughter makes you feel good all over from the physical to the mental.
6. False. Children are the ones with the bigger number of laughs each day (400 compared to the adult number of 17). Read  How often Do You Laugh a Day? for more information.

If you are an adult, what can you do to up your laugh number?

Just saw this commercial on TV and laughed my ass off. The kid’s facial expressions are so organic I swear this is not scripted.

Berdasarkan kisah nyata, film ini bercerita tentang Hunter “Patch” Adams, seorang mahasiswa kedokteran yang berusaha mencerahkan dunia kedokteran yang “dingin”. Dokter-dokter yang kaku dan acuh tak acuh menggelitik Patch. Kebanyakan dokter hanya peduli dengan penyakit pasien. Menurut Patch, paham ini harus ditinggalkan. Arti sehat bukan hanya semata-mata bebas dari penyakit, melainkan juga kepenuhan atau kesejahteraan secara fisik, mental, dan sosial (WHO dalam Pyke, 1968). Seharusnya dokter tidak hanya merawat penyakit, tetapi juga pasiennya. Apabila dokter memperhatikan aspek psikologis pasien, semangat hidup pasien akan timbul dan pasien akan lebih memperhatikan kesehatannya. Hal inilah yang mendorong Patch menggunakan metode “humor – humanisme”. Ia berusaha membuat pasiennya senang dan nyaman.

Dalam bukunya, House Calls, Adams mengatakan bahwa tujuan pertama yang harus dicapai setiap kali ada pasien yang datang adalah menjalin persahabatan. Pertemuan pertama bisa berlangsung antara 3 – 4 jam. “We might go for a walk. If you like to fish, maybe we will go fishing. If you like to run, we run together, and I’ll interview you while we are running. By the end of that time, I hope we have a trust, a friendship starting to develop, and from there we can proceed.” Mitch Roman, rekan Patch yang menentang pendekatan Patch, merasa frustrasi. Walaupun pengetahuan dan keahliannya menyembuhkan penyakit tidak diragukan, ia tidak dapat membuat pasiennya makan.

Saya ingat dengan adegan ketika Patch, untuk pertama kalinya, ke rumah sakit yang dikelola kampusnya. Saat itu Patch dan temannya menyusup di antara mahasiswa kedokteran yang sedang melakukan kunjungan. Di depan mereka, seorang perempuan, yang kakinya hampir busuk akibat diabetes, sedang terbaring. Mahasiswa-mahasiswa kedokteran itu sibuk bertanya tentang penyakitnya kepada dokter senior. Perempuan tersebut tampak bingung, seolah bertanya “Apakah yang kalian pedulikan hanya penyakitku?” Berbeda dengan yang lainnya, Patch malah menanyakan namanya. Setelah itu, pasien tersebut tersenyum, seperti mengucap terima kasih, “akhirnya ada orang yang benar-benar peduli pada saya”. Secara pribadi, adegan ini paling menyentuh saya. Hal kecil, seperti menanyakan nama, ternyata dapat membuat pasien merasa senang. Pasien tidak selalu hanya butuh janji apakah ia akan sehat. Sebuah perhatian dapat membuat harinya lebih cerah.

Kritik kedua Patch terhadap dunia kedokteran adalah anggapan bahwa kematian adalah musuh yang harus dikalahkan. Kalah dan menang dokter ditentukan dari keberhasilannya menyembuhkan penyakit. Sedangkan Patch menganggap kematian sebagai hal yang tidak perlu ditakuti karena kematian merupakan proses alami dalam kehidupan. Manusia pada akhirnya akan mati. “Why can’t we treat death with a certain amount of humanity and dignity, and decency, and God forbid, maybe even humor.” (“Patch Adams”, 1998). Apabila dokter memfokuskan dirinya untuk merawat pasien, tidak akan ada kekalahan.

Kematian merupakan proses yang menakutkan. Pasien-pasien, terutama dalam kasus penyakit terminal, seringkali stres karenanya. Kadangkala pasien ini butuh membicarakan kematian dengan seseorang. Dalam film ini, ada seorang pasien bernama Bill Davis yang perangainya sangat buruk. Ia sering mengusir dokter dan perawat yang berkunjung ke kamarnya. Pada awalnya, Patch juga ditolaknya. Akan tetapi, ketika Patch mengajak Bill untuk membicarakan kematian, Bill merespon dengan cukup baik. Sejak saat itu, Bill mau menjalani perawatan dengan baik. Ini merupakan adegan kedua yang paling berkesan untuk saya. Patch berani mengambil resiko membicarakan topik yang dianggap paling tabu untuk dibicarakan dengan seorang pasien. Ternyata itulah yang dibutukan oleh pasien.

Dalam film ini, Patch juga mengritik biaya rumah sakit yang terlalu mahal. Rumah sakit telah melupakan aspek kemanusiaan dan lebih mementingkan uang. Seorang ibu, yang anaknya baru meninggal, tidak boleh menengok anaknya sebelum menandatangani formulir. Keadaan seperti ini membuat masyarakat ragu untuk datang ke rumah sakit. Melihat keadaan ini, Patch mendirikan Gesundheit dimana pasien yang datang tidak perlu memusingkan soal biaya.

“All of life is a coming home” (“Patch Adams”, 1998). Semua orang mencari rumah dalam perjalanan hidupnya. Tempat yang terbaik adalah rumah. Mengambil filosofi ini, Gesundheit dikondisikan seperti rumah. Orang-orang di dalamnya seperti keluarga. Masing-masing orang di sana, termasuk pasien, diwajibkan untuk saling merawat satu sama lain, seperti memasak, mengganti perban, ataupun mendengarkan keluh kesah. Semua orang saling membantu untuk meredakan “badai” dalam hati mereka.

Secara keseluruhan, film ini ingin mengajak pelaku dunia pelayanan kesehatan untuk kembali kepada akarnya, yaitu untuk membantu orang. Akan tetapi film ini masih menyisakan pertanyaan dalam realitanya. Dalam dunia pelayanan kesehatan Indonesia, seringkali terdengar keluhan pelayanan rumah sakit yang kurang bermutu dan tidak profesional, atau kurang empati dalam melakukan program pelayanan kesehatan terutama di rumah sakit. Semoga saja pemerintah dan pelaku pelayanan kesehatan Indonesia mempunyai semangat seperti Patch yang senantiasa setia membantu orang lain dengan senyum dan harapan.

They sound relatively similar but at a closer look, the two terms have some differences. Sure they have the same words, but different meanings.

“Giving Thanks” means to give thanks for anything or anyone you are grateful to have. It’s an action that emphasizes the importance of the things you have versus the things you lack.  I can give thanks for life, loved ones, and  my accomplishments.

“Thanksgiving” is an idea that has been overly commercialized with turkeys and gluttony. Thousands of families crowd around a table full of food while millions more starve, as they do every single day of the year.

Thanksgiving is not about the turkey and delicious stuffing. Then again, it shouldn’t be. Sure, it’s great that family members travel far and wide to reunite under the same roof, sharing laughs, memories, and a good meal.  It’s about being grateful once a year but  every day. Every Thanksgiving, text messages are sent nationwide sharing one’s appreciation for whatever or whomever they choose. Sadly, only a few recognize the true meaning behind the holiday. It’s about people coming together at the same table, setting aside their differences and recognizing the importance of unity and family. For most families, this day and Christmas are the only two opportunities when the family will be reunited under one roof. All of the words and fights mean nothing on those two days. Why can’t it be that way 365 days or 366 days (in a leap year)?

I challenge you to say thanks each and every day for your many blessings.

Today, I am grateful for another day. I am thankful for rest and peace. I am thankful for knowledge and loved ones. What you grateful for?

I'm really grateful for the extraordinary friends we have (Paige and I) met on this forum. I am speaking only a day, so to with Paige, because I try to learn more about his passion. I have a job that really does not do the photo, and keeps me on my toes. By the time I log on normally fall asleep reading the mail and should be read several times. They have all taught me a lot and I have much to learn. Mpix should by all the major people you meet on this forum Thanks for all the support and prayers of every proud. It's really a wonderful family.I please all have a safe and happy Thannksgiving.