all grown up, giving thanks, things I love

You might recall that a former friend of mine has recently been arrested and extradited to Massachusetts for the murder of his wife. Honestly, I have next to nothing to say about it, but it has resulted in some interesting things - primarily hoards of folks coming out of the woodwork looking me up (I've been told that I'm 'everywhere' on google.) These folks come out to say, "Hey, you hear about James?," and along the way, the leave a trail of bread crumbs leading to other folks. Blog entries lead to links to other blogs which leads to areas on Friendster and Myspace. Needless to say, in the last 7 days, I've found a lot of folks I'd been wondering about and several folks I had forgotten entirely. I look at the blogs, at profiles, etc. It's fascinating. In fact, there is one that I have started looking at nearly daily.

I met D when I was 13 years old. He was this tiny guy (I mean TINY,) but he was funny, had a great face, and could dance. Everyone thought that he would be "hot" if he ever grew up - and grow up he did. Over a foot. Over a summer. When I was 21, I had my one and only one night stand with D (does it count as a one night stand if I had known him all those years?) Without going into too many details (Hi, Mom,) let me just say WOW. WOW. WOW. I've always wondered what happened to him. Now I know. He's still in the same town, he's married to a gorgeous woman, and he has 3 children, a mortgage, a car payment, and a blog. He's happy. And he's conservative. Who'd have guessed? Not me - nor the guy who repaired the broken shower door! ;-)

It's odd, looking at pictures of him and his beautiful family. I can still see the teenager in him - and he's certainly not a teenager anymore. A stranger would see him and comment on the man, but I still see the guy. He is friends with another guy I knew years ago and he, also, has a wife and children. They've grown up. We've all grown up. I see in their words and their pictures that we all have the same lives as each other. Oh sure, some have more money than others, some lean more to the right or the left, but all in all, we're all the same. I find that incredibly comforting. I find it unifying. I find it to be encouraging and it brings me peace. And, maybe someone out there has stumbled upon this blog or Kohleidoscope or my business website and say, "Hey, she turned out alright! We're the same!"

We're all the same, eh?

Thanksgiving is coming up. I've always found it absurd that we all choose one day to be thankful. Good grief, either you're a grateful person or you are not, right? I've spent a lot of years being not. Not grateful. And, therefore, not happy. In the last few months, I've been making a conscious effort to be actively grateful. What's actively grateful, you ask? Actively grateful is taking a moment (or several) every single day to comment about those things for which you are thankful, grateful, etc. I spent a lot of time with DDFF this weekend and she probably thinks I'm a wing nut (jump on in here, DDFF, I can take it) because I actually stopped in the middle of an aisle at Target on Saturday to say, aloud, how grateful I am that we both have amazingly wonderful, supportive husbands. I didn't say it to her. I didn't say it to the folks behind me asking me to get the hell out of the way. Nope. I said it, aloud, to the universe. And the universe has repaid me by allowing me to be married to a wonderfully supportive husband. This active gratitude has changed my life. Try it. You might be surprised.

Speaking of gratitude, I'm gonna list some things I love.

• Jazz. I love jazz. Spent the better part of the afternoon doing laundry and such and listening to Dave Brubeck. Don't be scared of jazz. Try it.
• My new cut.
• My amazing kids. I love them, they crack me up, they teach me daily.
• My husband - he's so talented it makes my head swim
• Hearing from MIL and FIL who ask to keep the boys over night in the middle of the week
• Long sleeved t-shirts
• My girlfriends (yes, Jason, this includes you.)
• Paid bills
• good food
• old friends with new ideas (new wine in old bottles, as they say.)
• popcorn with nutritional yeast
• art
• creativity
• the success of my friends
• crossword puzzles
• good coffee
• my pink slippers
• flannel sheets
• Lady Grey tea (ohh, thanks for that, DDFF)
• yoga
• the warm spot between my husband's shoulder blades - and the fact that he lets me put my cold nose there to warm it in the middle of the night .
• Swiffer Sweep + Vac - yes, it really is that good
• Venus Divine razors (good enough to get me shaving after 7 years)
• documentaries
• 3 c flour, 1/2 c salt, 2 packets of KoolAid, 2 c boiling water. Mix together, kneed. You've got yourself some instant, home made Play Doh.
• Dinner

Just a few. Tell me - for what are you grateful???

(gobble gobble)