Today I am thankful

Today I am thankful (not in any order):

1. For the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
2. For the pleasure of making pie
3. For a pumpkin that came out to be exactly the two cups the recipe required
4. For Mom’s pumpkin pie recipe
5. For new recipes googled—say, pecan pie with maple syrup
6. For Northern-Southern détente—say pecan pie with maple syrup
7. For my family
8. For my dogs
9. For the joy that my girl dog gets from an 18 inch stainless steel bowl (yip-yip-yip-yah!)
10. For neighbors who tolerate her singing (yip-yip-yip-yah!)
11. For the giant octopus toy that Stony loves, which has only now started to fray after a whole year
12. For a washer and drier that work (we won’t discuss the dishwasher)
13. Okay, we will— for the dishwasher’s eight years of service in this house
14. For plentiful water – what a gift!
15. For the whole idea of flannel
16. For old friends
17. For new friends
18. For my neighbors
19. For the guy who reliably plows my driveway
20. For heating with wood
21. For my little gas stove in the living room that toasts my toes
22. For the pleasure of weeding out items too big to wear any more
23. For my job
24. For my colleagues, every last one of them
25. For certain specific people who have enriched my life this year and made me see the world through fresh eyes
26. For the invention of DVR
27. For all manner of things electronic: email, word processing, spreadsheets, digital cameras…
28. For snow
29. For my super reliable, mileage efficient car
30. For my friend who visits my dogs every day, just because she cares about them
31. For the incredible views from my house
32. For water, but especially hot water
33. For a big pile of balsam brush on my front porch—garlands in the making
34. For my health, especially the dramatic improvements in my health this year
35. For my trainers and their good advice
36. And most especially for the elliptical trainer and what it does for my shape
37. For knitting, which turns 2 dimensions into three—how cool is that?
38. For the women who knit with me
39. For silk long underwear
40. For my garden
41. And my house
42. And the 14-inch maple boards in my living room, that extend the width of the house, and that I suspect came from the maple grove out back
43. For modern and not-so-modern medicine and for my healthcare providers
44. For Vermont’s no-billboard law
45. For being (sort of) handy around the house
46. For friends who help me finish projects when I’m not quite handy enough
47. For the miracle of paint and wallpaper
48. For the invention of cleaning products that easily remove nose prints
49. For being almost done with my Christmas shopping
50. For a day off to finish
51. For the gift of hunter orange bandanas for Cassie and Stone to wear for hunting season
52. For friends who taste test recipes for me
53. For having a garage in winter
54. For the invention of automatic outdoor lights and remote garage door openers
55. For the lights that come on in my bedroom at the same time winter and summer
56. That although I forgot to set the timer for the pumpkin pie, I can smell when they are perfectly done (they are!)
57. That the pies came out perfect
58. For dogs who don’t steal food off the counter, and even for those who do
59. For pecans from my Mom to go into another pie
60. For maple syrup from a colleague to in there, too
61. For the whole idea of whipped cream
62. And for whipped cream itself
63. For recipes that turned out (pear jam, pickled pears, apple butter with coriander, pears in maple syrup) and for the lessons from the ones that didn’t (awful pumpkin pickles)
64. For recipe mistakes that turn out to be discoveries (apple butter with coriander was supposed to be with cardamom)
65. For friends who will feed me dinner today if I bring pie, or probably even if I don’t
66. For the farm fresh local organic turkey I still have in the freezer and for the fun of cooking it on another day
67. For friends who regularly drag me out for pizza
68. For friends who keep calling me even when I am not nearly attentive enough to them
69. For the Quiet Path in Stowe, and the dogs who romp there
70. For the tree that fell down this summer, that will warm us all this winter
71. For the repairs to the dog pen, so that Cassie can be outside and sing, even during hunting season
72. For silly jokes
73. For migrating birds outside my window
74. For an unending supply of murder mysteries to soothe my frazzled brain
75. For the opportunities to learn a lot of different things, to do a lot of different kinds of work and to live a lot of different places in my life
76. For blogging, which spurred me to write almost every day for a long time, which taught me a lot about writing
77. For genetics, which gave me a happy and exploratory spirit
78. For my parents, who nurtured that spirit
79. For those knee injections I tried for the first time this year that relieve almost all of my knee pain
80. For flu shots
81. For the fun of watching Cassie watch the dog show
82. For discovering items in my closet that I forgot I had…and that I love!
83. That the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade still makes me cry