Thankfulness

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

I'm all for giving thanks, and being thankful, and spending time with family, and eating.  Really, I am.  But I can sum up my feelings about Thanksgiving best in a recent Twitter post:

I have ADD. That's just the way it is. So Thanksgiving can be the Trifecta of stress for me. Don't get me wrong - my love of food and cooking is well documented. But cooking on a schedule is...dicey.  And cleaning? No, we're not hosting Thanksgiving (thanks be to heaven above), but we're still leaving, and being a woman, I don't like coming home to a messy house.

And travel?

Little bit traveled out.

Little bit.

A lot.

So throw in the fact that Thanksgiving food is not my kind of food and my general apathy towards professional football, and it leaves me with a strong desire to fast-forward to the yuletide season lurking around the corner.

(And if you've stepped inside a place of retail in the last month, you've caught it mid-lurk)

But I'm thankful for my husband, and his job, and our house, and my publishing career, and our wiggy dog. I'm thankful for red curry, sunny days, digital photography, antique china, Nars lipstick, how Danny looks in his motorcycle jacket, title insurance, new friends, old friends, Starbucks, good books, alpacas, freeze-dried beef liver treats, sale books at Barnes & Noble, red leaves, TJ Maxx, Nutella, full-spectrum light bulbs, Target, comfortable shoes, pink nail polish, candied ginger, the bulk section of WinCo, butterflies, dry shampoo, vacuum cleaners, pink spackle, Doctor Who, and the fact that the holiday movie season approacheth.

I'm thankful for my family, my parents, siblings, parents-in-law, siblings-in-law, aunts, cousins, uncles, and another holiday with my 95-year-old grandmother.

I'm thankful for my agent, for the wonderful editors I've gotten to work with, my publicists, and the booksellers who help people discover my books.

I'm thankful we found a truly crackerjack dog trainer to help with Tesla's "special needs."

I'm thankful that we are no longer building a house.

I'm thankful that the Lord is gracious.

Because of that thankfulness, I can handle a traffic-snarled bit of organized thanks-giving.

And after Thanksgiving?  Let the advent season commence!

Update: Also thankful for this - 

Yay! Sometimes it really is the little things :-)

Rescue, Kiss, Repeat

I don't know about you, but I'm loving ABC's new show, Once Upon a Time. It's one of those rare TV shows that keeps getting better and better with each episode.

In the first few episodes, we see Prince Charming (whose real name is James, we learn), wake Snow White. Later, we learn how Snow and Charming met. It was the kind of meet cute that involves a lot of flirtatious squabbling, adventure, a grudging admiration and a certain amount of chemistry. She saves him. He saves her.

Rescue, kiss, repeat.

I love that.  I love it because it's a truer model for a real-life happy ending in marriage. It's not just the prince rescuing the princess in the classic model, or the princess rescuing the prince in the feminist model. Long-term love involves both.  Marriage is committing to rescue each other, over and over again. It's having each other's backs, it's being strong for each other.

Fairy tales will always have a special place in my heart, but I'm troubled by the lack of stories that involve courage on behalf of both men and women. East of the Sun, West of the Moon is one of the rare examples of a couple who must rescue each other. The prince, as the bear, rescues the girl from poverty.  The girl rescues the prince from the troll princess.

There is still a happily ever after for them, but both the man and the woman have had to work for it.

And that's how marriage is, isn't it? Courage is required for both the husband and wife to fight for and rescue each other, facing down despair, discouragement, illness, and injury in battle.

You never know how many battles you'll face in marriage, or when the next one will find you. The happily-in-betweens? Absolutely worth the work.