What are we thankful for?

Carole

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Happy Thanksgiving, my pagan pretties! How about we mention what we are thankful for? I know my life has been monumentally insane this year, so I need to focus on the positive. I have twenty things I am thankful for, just off the top of my head:

1. My husband found a better job than the one he lost.
2. I still have my job.
3. The doctors are 90% sure that my brother's tumor is not cancerous.
4. My home is warmer this year than it was last year.
5. My older son, Daniel, is standing on his own two feet and doing great.
6. My younger son, Seth, is still making incredible grades in pre-med AND he is considering going to med school in Tennessee!!!
7. My parents are in good health and are financially secure.
8. My husband is extraordinarily kind to me, even when I don't deserve it.
9. My brother, sister and I get along really well, even when we drive each other crazy.
10. My in-laws don't hate me, and in fact actually like me!
11. The lump in my breast has not grown and is probably benign.
12. My kids actually enjoy spending time with me.
13. I can't remember the last time I was truly hungry.
14. I can't remember the last time I was truly broke with no idea when more money would come.
15. I can pay all my bills.
16. I have two wonderful, beautiful dogs, Sinner and Gypsy, who are always excited and happy to see me, even if I come home from work late.
17. I have terrific neighbors who watch out for me since Mr. Vagabond is always traveling for work.
18. I have the ability to go back to school in the spring even though I had to take the fall semester off.
19. I have a home.
20. I have love all around me in every direction.
 

FreelanceKen

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Things to be thankful for this year.

1. I now work freelance full-time and get paid to do it.:hooray:

2. My wife is home full-time as well

3. I am married to the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the world

4. We are in our own place doing our own thing

5. The bills are paid

6. bankruptcy is over

7. The car still runs

8. Our health is fantastic

9. I found AW ....(ok I know, bad plug):tongue

10. Even though there is chaos and unrest all around us, we are still blessed with good health, good family and good friends
 

Carole

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I think that is an outstanding list! How I long to be a gainfully employed freelancer. (sigh)
 

Cath

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I am thankful...

1) for my friends, who make me laugh even when things are bad.
2) for my wonderful husband, who, even after 12 years, still thinks I'm hot.
3) because for the first time, we seem to be getting on top of this thing called money.
4) that I have a job I love.
5) that I work with so many amazing, talented, and just downright nice people.
6) I am healthy.
7) I have a roof over my head, and food to fill my belly.
8) My brain and body still do what they should most of the time.
9) I have three, very individual, cats who remind me that happiness can be found in the most simple pleasures.
10) That, on balance, I turned out okay.
11) I can make a list of ten things I'm thankful for without thinking too hard about it.
12) I have traveled to many different countries and places, and found something to love in all of them.
13) I can take pleasure in being outside, sun, rain, snow, or whatever the elements choose to throw at us.
14) That, on finishing the list, I thought of a whole slew more things to be thankful for.
 
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SLake

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Contrary to popular belief, I think the line between being direct and being rude is not thin, and most people are fully aware of when they have crossed it.

Sorry, I have to take issue with your sig, as a young male and older and older I have constantly been misunderstood for being rude when I'm "direct."

Times when I've been rude were often misinterpreted as humour. It may appear as if I should realign myself with dictionary definitions, so I'll put it another way: I've been surprised when people have been angry with me for being direct. Equally, when niggled enough to be rude to people they have often laughed and warmed to me.

I am certainly made aware when people think I've crossed the line - the difficulty then is clarifying to them where I'm coming from - that done people relax somewhat and give me another chance. Sure, that is a kind of icebreaker, but even so I am not fully aware of the difference to begin with - but I'm quickly made aware of it.

So yeah, we're not all as sharp as you (argh, that sounds sarcastic -) I mean it sincerely! Well that's a great example of me, so I won't edit that out. I shall try again: sometimes I'm not the sharpest knife regarding direct and rude, and I'm not the only one, so give us a little chance to redeem ourselves sometimes, puleeez?

And the thread... Pagan, I have a friend who's a Pagan, Wicca, or Wiccan she says and she blessed our previous house - as did some Mormons later on... I am not intending to be offensive or sarcastic, that's what happened - no, no, you know what I mean?! My friend the Wiccan has helped us no end, and I have nothing against Mormons, so please can you be patient while I talk myself out of this one?!

I will get to "what I am thankful for" and it is patience, tolerance and understanding, even though I have a loving wife and terrific kids as well. If you can be tolerant of my stumbling, I will be grateful. If you can be tolerant that I appreciate the Pagan pov, even as i appreciate other povs, I would also be grateful, just that I see people as people first rather than - and this probably seems to say you probably don't, which I do not mean either, sigh.

All I wanted to mention was the sig, which I could have done by PM, but that would seem too personal I think. So I'll be thankful if you forgive me my hob nails trying to clarity that I often overlook direct and rude - this is probably written in the wrong part of the forum entirely, arrr...

If I get totally ignored here I'll be thankful, blush. For heaven's sake, don't lock this thread on my account, it's a nice thread. I was passing through and meant no harm. Delete this post if that's best.
 

Carole

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Oh, you'll not get off that easy. No ignoring here. No deleting, no locking. Yours is certainly not even close to fodder for that! :)

You're allowed to take issue with my signature. I'm usually very careful to preface my opinions with words like I think or I believe or In my opinion. And opinions are like bellybuttons. Nearly everyone has one! (And notice I said most and not all people.) ;)

I actually understand what you're saying. My younger son and my husband are two who are often oblivious when they say something that blows someone else's mind. For example, that same son called me a few nights ago and almost broke my heart before he redeemed himself.

I have been begging and pleading with him to try to get Thanksgiving day off from work because I haven't seen him since June. He is in college in another state about 6 1/2 hours away. He argues that since he works at a movie theater, the chances were somewhere between slim and none. Mr. Vagabond, my husband, and I will be traveling there and hoped to pick him and my older son up to take them to my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. The first words out of my son's mouth when I answered the phone were, "This had better be a damned awesome Thanksgiving!" My jaw hit the floor. He wasn't playing. He wasn't teasing. He was serious. He proceeded to tell me everything he had to go through to get that day off. And of course I immediately wished I hadn't asked him in the first place. And also, of course, I wondered why he thought it was ok to make me feel as though I had done something awful by wanting to see him. His point of view was different.

He was just venting. It was not directed at me even though he said it to me and was yelling at me at the time. At some point, he understood what he had done. He told me he had to go for a bit and would call me right back. When he did, he had a whole 'nuther attitude and thanked me for letting him vent. Of course I thought, but didn't say, that I wished he had told me up front he was only venting so I wouldn't have taken it personally.

My two sons are so different. He is literally a genius with almost no social skills. I often hear that the higher a person's IQ is, the more likely they are to not be able to relate to average folks. But. My older son is also literally a genius with more social skills than he knows what to do with. So that theory is kinda out the window. I just dunno.

I know that there are people who don't know when they have offended others. In my mind, they are too busy thinking about their own situation to think about what they are saying and how the other person will take it. I don't mean for that to be a hateful comment. It's just my little opinion. I have tried to impress upon my younger son that conversations aren't just for saying what it on your mind. They are for equally distributing and sharing thoughts and ideas between two or more people. And if that is true, then the other person's thoughts, ideas and feelings have to be considered. In other words, sometimes conversations are work.

That same son (poor guy--I guess his ears are burning right now) is in pre-med and intends to be a psychiatrist. I often wonder if his will be the best personality for that field because it will guard him from taking other people's problems home or if he needs to develop a lot more empathy to be a good psychiatrist. Of course I think that because I am usually overflowing with empathy. I cry when I watch SPCA or Humane Society commercials. And don't even get me started on slave-labor sweat shops with starving children working there for pennies while those who reap the rewards of their work are billionaires in some other country who throw away more food in a day than those children even see in a week.

I guess what I am trying to say, very poorly, is that it's fine that you don't agree with my signature. I have a bellybutton, just like you probably do too. :)
 

SLake

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Well phew, I'm thankful for your understanding!

I'm kicking myself for overlooking the subtleties of your sig, which I'm usually careful with in my own writing, but mostly no one ever notices so it kinda slips, darn it.

Your honesty re: people who don't know when they have offended others; because they are: too busy thinking about their own situation... I'd be blunt and say they're ignorant, which relates to me in my past, even my present sometimes sadly. It'd be easy to palm it off as a man thing, that we don't have the capacity. Though to say it's a 'man thing' would be generalizing which works well in politics when identifying 'the enemy,' but seldom in the real world. As you say IQ in one sense yes, but in the other no.

I said ignorant of myself because younger, I didn't understand, and indeed I wasn't listening to people because I'm sure some were trying to tell me, but I didn't hear until I realized, all by myself :)

So you say: too busy thinking about their own situation to think about what they are saying and how the other person will take it. Yep me, but I did that because I thought I was right and justified. Maybe akin to a zealot I thought I had all the information, but I didn't. The world was profoundly bigger than I realized.

Sure there's elements of selfishness but I think ignorance was and I guess still is my greatest flaw. I thought I cared, I felt I cared, but lacking understanding I was gauche.

I was hurtful. Perhaps that is the problem with the less than subtle son with whom I can equate with my younger self. And then there's my son, whom I can equate with your subtle son. With my son I took time to explain the nuances of life that I had learnt. The primary of that was listen, and here I have to admit, it is to woman I suggested he listen hardest.

I worry that it may be considered I'm soft soaping women folk, but for men, a woman's world is a whole alien place, a world I never knew existed, and for me it's where I found most of my answers. I only had to listen and I mean listen, without darn well interrupting!

Though any man knows that when he first teams up with a woman he suddenly learns what going on around the place. And well, there's much, much more to it than that. A whole new world of subtle nuances ready to be learned - ask and listen. And I cannot stress enough: a whole new world.

Having said all this I'm overlooking arrogant people who don't care a hoot. Men and woman both who walk on everyone. Those kind of women are frequently more subtle than their equivalent men and probably more deadly.

This kind of knowledge isn't taught in schools, because by men it isn't widely known. Women are dreamers, men are thinkers remains a strongly held belief, but it's not mentioned in the current climate so the notion's gone underground where alas it remains, undiscussed. I feel helpless in the face of that mountain of general ignorance of which I was part of, and proudly so...

And sweat shops, even slaves (multiracial I mean, which I hope goes without saying). Both a whole different mindset entirely but I think deeply rooted in civilization. The 'right to own' concept still evident in employers, governments and peoples in the West. Except the terms slave and sweat shop aren't used, so there's a creeping insidiousness that never quite goes away.

I struggled to understand the historical pov of slavery being I wrote about it character-wise. And rather than many current stories where owners are secretly ashamed and real owners are seen as plain nasty. I think that's a shallow pandering view, a pc view, of how things were.

Sure there were extremes of nastiness, there always are. Today employees are maltreated even in the West. But the day-to-day average historical person, how did they feel? And I'm not talking US slavery, but it's gone on since records began.

I wanted to write there are slaves and sweat shops, just as today there are traffic lights. Some are nasty and cause traffic jams but otherwise they're not given much thought. They exist because they've "always" existed and that's the way it works kind of mentality. So I'm saying I think there were slave owners and sweat shop operators who were people like us. Even as men think they are thinkers, as I proudly did until my privileged glimpse at a bigger world.

Meh, writing this my 'subtle brain' was disengaged, so does this seem like a goddam lecture from me?! And I've written in the Christian forum before, so I'll have alienated all of them, never mind a lot of men who think I'm plain fawning. The list goes on... Hells bells I'll go all the way - you said: I guess what I am trying to say, very poorly.... On the contrary, you said it well and I'm privileged you felt me capable of understanding!

Ok, ok, me and my hob nails will toddle off, clankety, clank.
 

Carole

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Two things, before this thread gets totally derailed. My husband has a similar notion about women. He'd be the first to step up and say that women are smarter or more aware and that men keep talking because they want to be perceived as smarter or "righter". I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's nice to fall back on when he is disagreeing with me. :D

And regarding employers' "ownership" of employees, I laughed out loud when I read that because I had my very own experience with it just last week. A memo was sent out by the two men over my department. The title was, "Procedures for Using Carole". No joke, that thing went out to the whole department. I have been given guru status because I actually know how to use Excel and QuickBooks and other assorted, common office software. They make royal messes of all of it when they try and so they come to me to fix whatever they wreck. I repair screwed up data, reformat spreadsheets and totally rewrite contracts. None of that is in my job description. My immediate boss fumes when they take my time away from my real job. And so "Procedures for Using Carole" was born. Could be worse, I guess. It could have been a pink slip instead of a memo. *shrugs*
 
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Mr Flibble

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My son knows that an open mind is a learning mind

My kids know that appearance means f all ( I may have put it to then more mildly)

My Old Man manages to put up with me :D

My son is the dudiest dude that ever duded.

My daughter is ( gods know why, it's not my influence!) the girliest purple / pink / ballroom dancing girl who ever lived (though she has a thing for Iron maiden to - my fault). Please don't make me watch High School Musical again.

My daughter loves her cuddles - and so do I.

Life is pretty cool - apart from the pressure I put myself under, oh and weird shit my brain insists on doing

Ah well. C'est la vie

And stuff
 

SLake

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Procedures for using Carole, lol. Pink slip never, sounds like raise time to me!

Things I'm thankful for...

I'll keep it simple: everything after nearly copping it (dying) several times when I young, and danger was my friend :D

Edit: Rats, I kinda killed this thread, er, did I? I just noticed IdiotsRus came later... Er, so I don't know if me adding to my obscure: thankful for nearly everything will contribute further. Though nearly dying a few times gives life a certain impetus, and maybe I should say I'm not trying to outdo anyone here - sometimes I come across that way not intending it - if I were attempting that I'd leave no doubt about it. EG: IdiotsRus with the dudiest son - well my son is dudie than yours. I can give you an argument about that! :D

Ah but more seriously, after second, third and fourth chances at life, when I complain about anything I feel guilty because I'm lucky to be here, even for misfortunes. Maybe like I'm in a play and I don't mind when shit happens because that's part of the adventure. I mean it's life that's the deal - er, clouds have a silver lining I thing I'm trying to say?! How can I say what I mean and add to being thankful for... Well maybe my last misfortune: I burnt a conifer of the hedge separating us from our neighbor, of the house we just moved into... To replace it we dug up another conifer from our garden, rather than buying a new tiny conifer(s). The old conifer replacement was huge, it's ball of earth a ton or so which had to be jacked out of the 6ft hole we dug, then cranked with block and tackle to the hole where I'd burnt the hedge.

Yeah, the neighbor. Thankfully he was tolerant, and the whole incident resulted in us becoming friends with him and his family. Anyway afterwards me raking the ground I broke a rib - the result of all my exertion on the previous days. So all up, I looked a bit of dick (anyone wanna to buy a paraffin -kerosene- flamegun near new :D ).

Well I'm thankful for the incident because it pulled me up and made me reassess myself - my family too and friends all helping.

My life's been good and bad but I'm thankful for it all because it's my life. Where else would I be - dead / elsewhere. So this life of mine is gooda place as any, and I'm thankful for it. I'm not being religious here either, just me I guess...

[posting this, connection to my IP was lost, so I hope this repost doesn't cause duplication]
 
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2Wheels

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Alrighty then. My (late) contribution. On topic too!

What am I thankful for?
Good health (and access to healthcare).
Food in my belly, clean water out of the tap, warm shoes on my feet, roof over my head.
That although my mum recently died, she went the way we might all hope to go.
No asteroid has hit the earth and caused a cataclismic event (yet).
My cats.
Great neighbours.
Steady job.
Music.
That I've never been a victim of crime.
That I've never been involved in a war (directly, that is).

I could go on - there's so much! I always like to remind myself of these things when I get a bit blue. I really don't have anything to complain about, considering what some folks have to endure.
 

Carole

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That's what I always try to tell myself. Sometimes Self listens, and sometimes Self stuffs ear plugs into her ears while saying, "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA"