appreciating what you have

thanksgiving.
a day to think about all the important things in your live. and to give thanks for where you have been. and to look forward to where you are going. for some perhaps. for others it might be a day to watch the macys parade. and football. and then eat turkey. and drink beer. and avoid awkward conversations with your relatives. for me it was more of the former. but i can definitely appreciate the latter...

i ran this morning. i had been looking forward to getting outside all week since my recently redeveloped strained relationship with the treadmill (of course i love and appreciate you but i just don't think we are going anywhere). skipped the whole turkey trot thing and just ran on my own (the $30 still in my bank account thanks me). i have a bit of a cold that is slowly me down a touch but not enough to prevent me from getting out and running. it was actually a little chilly for the first time weeks. nothing bad but just a noticeable difference. i wore pants. and gloves. put in a little over five miles. great to be outside. an opportunity to recenter myself and just get some perspective. then home again to my family for breakfast. a nap. and then an amazing thanksgiving meal prepared by meredith.

thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday. meredith's too. it makes me think of family. and home. and growing up. all about nostaligia. we draw on our memories while trying to create new ones for spencer. it's an interesting balance. and there is a comfort to all of it. i remember the times when it snowed over a foot and sarah and eric and i went sledding in the backyard while the turkey was cooking before family came over. i remember when the whole extended family came down from ny so we could all enjoy the time together. i remember going to my grandparents house and the turkey not being completely cooked so they put it in the microwave to finish the job (and i also distinctly remember not eating it that year). and there were definitely the years as i got older that we snuck beers into backpacks in the backhall and then brought them to my room to consume later. or played basketball outside in the pouring rain in an effort to prove something to cousins who thought they knew everything. or tackle football in the sideyard. it all seemed so simple then. and maybe it still is but we have just started looking at it differently. and more recently we have spent thanksgivings with merediths siblings. our house has always been full around this time so it is a bit of a shift this year. not bad but different. i miss the hustle and bustle of it all but love the closeness of the most important people in my life. this is the first year in a long time that it was just "us" for thanksgiving - our family unit - mere, spencer and myself. it was nice. we talked about what we were thankful for. and we ate good food. and appreciated all that we have. and cast our hopes into the sky for the future. we have been ver fortunate in our lives. we have good people in our lives. and we have a lot to be thankful for. i am hopeful that the coming year brings more opportunities for us all.

i know good people. i am fortunate enough to be related to many of you. and to have made a lot of you "family". regardless of where you fall on that spectrum i appreciate you all.