Happy Thanksgiving Everybody

Ten Things I'm Thankful For, in No Particular Order:

1. Clam Dip: As a kid I couldn't understand why Aunt Susan only fixed this at the holidays. Now it means Thanksgiving and Christmas to me, and I don't fix it any other time either.

2. Still having jobs: Obvious? It was touch and go for a while there with Amelia's job (still is, really--the hospitality industry takes a big dive during a bad economy), and of course my contract is year to year, and I'm the most junior English teacher. We feel pretty lucky.

3. The New Xbox Live set-up: Streaming Netflix movies, downloading games to the hard drive, easy navigation. It's made my xbox a whole new entertainment center.

4. Finn: This dog cracks me up and just plan makes me happy. He loves attention, and he has abour five times the energy I do, but he's awesome.

5. Shoddy workmanship: We're doing some minor remodeling work on the guest bathroom this weekend. The hardest job was going to be getting the liquid nails of the wall for the bathroom mirror. But it turns out there is no liquid nail on the bathroom mirror. It's just held in place by four little brackets and will take about 10 seconds to remove. Sometimes shortcuts work in my favor.

6. The family: I hope this one goes without saying, but my parents, siblings, in-laws, and nieces/nephews are all pretty incredible. We don't see them enough, but there's nothing better than those times when we can get together. It's looking like we'll have some Christmas visitors this year, and I can't wait.

7. The Internet: Do I waste far more time than I should? Yes. Do I love it? Absolutely.

8. The House: At times I wonder why we bought it. The back yard is still a mess, remodeling and repairing costs far too much money, and I'm not sure if the economy will be good enough for us to sell it in a few years when we want to move. But I love having some place that is ours, that we can do with what we want, and that really and truly feels like home.

9. Podcasts: It's basically my job to do the grocery shopping in our family, and even when it takes me a while, I rarely mind it because I spend that time listening to podcasts. Political podcasts, comedy podcasts, video game podcasts, news podcasts...who knew the 21st century equivalent of talk radio would be my favorite part of having an iPod?

10. Amelia: My life would be empty without her. By far the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm thankful for her every day.

Hope your holiday is filled with good food and good memories.