I hope that everyone has a great holiday season. I plan to have a great time. Four days off is a good thing for me. Avoiding Black Friday is the highlight of my time off.

We are visiting friends houses almost every night this week. Tuesday was a dinner with some friends. Wednesday is pumpkin pie with a couple that live very closeby. Thursday will be Thanksgiving with the family that hosted my wife up until we got married. A good time.

I also look forward to the annual Turkey Bowl. It’s a full contact block, tag-to-down footbal game played with whomever arrives by 9am. Some years, it’s played in ice and snow. This year, it will be about 50 degrees at game time.

As this time of year approaches, I naturally think about the things for which I am thankful. This year is no exception. As always, I am thankful for God – He puts up with a great deal from me. I am also thankful for my wife who also puts up with a great deal from me. I am joyful that our son continues to be a happy boy. (He is still scared of mrtool for some reason, but I am hopeful that will change.) I am grateful for my online and offline friends. I appreciate how much they truly give to my life. Bobber always has a good and thoughtful word. When I visit St. Louis again, I intend to look you up – we don’t have to go to Chik-Fil-A. Alan is always a welcome sight as well. I do not know if I’ll ever get to ATL again, but if I do, expect an email. Of course mrtool, my long-suffering roommate is a great friend – I enjoy our Fridays. Salguod is always thougtful and I appreciate his site and commentary here. I keep intending to call you, but never remember to. I know I sound quite a bit different on the phone than I do online. 🙂 Thank you for stopping by and your support and emails. I am also grateful for Rock, my cousin, and Capteucalyptus, my life-long chum. I will be in NC this spring after the second baby is born. I hope both of you get to meet my children. Milly and daughter also pop by from time to time and I am glad they are here. Milly’s description of chickeny-goodness can get me through a tough day. Daughter’s perspective is helpful, especially as I am prone to male-centered thinking. (Male-centered thinking tends to believe that the solution with the fewest variables is best and it takes every opportunity to oversimplify the number of variables to less than four.) I cannot forget TTK: thank you for all the emails and the well-wishes. I still pray for you and your husband every day. I would be remiss if I did not mention Kurt. Dude, the videos and emails are great. Keep them coming. If there are others I have forgotten, my deep apologies.

I am also grateful for my family on both sides. My wife’s sister always gives us thoughtful gifts, espcially music from here. I am grateful for my mother-in-law for her tremendous patience and wisdom. I am grateful for my father-in-law who made a CD for our son as well as visited us for his first birthday. Thanks to his gift early in our marriage, our financial circustances are in a better place. I am grateful for my own parents who have given so much to us. I wish we were not separated by half a country so that you could see your grandson whenever you wished. Thanks to my Dad’s purchase of the Catera, I have not been burdened with a car that is ill suited for the midwest. Thanks to my mother, we are able to get special things for our son. Of course, I am always thankful for my brother who is always there for me.

I had a friend in Chapel Hill once tell me that I had an old soul. It is true, I’m afraid. I think I have felt like an old man since my 20s. When I was growing up, I did not live or think this way and I miss that person terribly some days. However, I am grateful for the circumstances that lead to the development of my aged soul. It’s the best way I can state that I am grateful for a nervous breakdown – thanks to that dramatic event, I took my own life more seriously and thoughtfully. I did not destroy myself or destroy more people than I already had at that point.

I am grateful for the real second life I’ve been able to have here in the midwest. Thanks to what many considered a very bad decision, I feel more free than I have in a long time. In my quest for inner peace, moving here has been the greatest act of providence God has given to me.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I truly hope you have a blessed holiday.