Moments of thanksgiving

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, and confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow." - Melodie Beattie

Today I'm taking a break from my photo lessons to simply enjoy Thanksgiving.  But first, a little story about thanksgiving.

It is so amazing to me how humans (i.e., me and my husband) can be so affected by news.  How our moods can literally go on a roller coaster in a 24 hour period of time.  Yesterday at this time, we were receiving texts from our youngest daughter telling us the progress of her trip home from college for Thanksgiving.  She let us know when she got on the bus, when she arrived to the first destination and when she met up with her friends for the trip the rest of the way in the car.  We even went so far as to watch her with the i-phone app that tracks the location of friends.

The anticipation of seeing her, having her home for the weekend and all the thankfulness we experienced knowing she was safe was truly uplifting.  To see her and hug her was such a high.  After the fun of seeing her look around and see what is the same and different in the house while she's been gone the semester, she was ready to nap.  We felt the comforting feeling of gratefulness.  Just having her here and knowing right where she was, resting peacefully in her room.

I felt so happy and content.  It was a perfect time to bake the pies for Thanksgiving.  The lovely aroma of pumpkin pies baking added to the comforting mood.  I couldn't think of a reason not to keep smiling.  The mood suddenly changed with the news of "has anyone seen my school Id lanyard?"...  What is in your lanyard thing I asked?  "My school id, my license, my debit card, my insurance card, my travel card...I can't find it..."  

She must have dropped it on the mega bus.  Yikes, is all I can say.  I don't know about you, but it was so real, the mood in the house went from grateful and happy to fearful, angry, depressed and panic.  She amazingly stayed more calm than her parents.  Either she didn't know the magnitude of what can happen with the information she lost or she knew it would do no good to get angry.  Probably the latter, since we, the parents, tend to blow everything out of proportion now that she is a young adult.

We successfully talked her into cancelling the travel card and the debit card.  I contacted the insurance company and we decided when we would get the new driver's license.  The only other thing to do was to check with the school when she returned to get a new id.  We somberly went on with the day.  Let's be thankful she has learned a few valuable lessons.  She's been so amazing living in a big city, traveling all alone, and growing up, now she knows to put the darn thing around her neck instead of her pocket.  This will only help her grow more.  But...as I went to bed I still couldn't help but panic about what could go wrong with the loss of the documents.

As I awoke this morning, I started to plan what else we could do to find the documents.  I was in my own little world wondering what we could do.  My husband asked me how I slept.  Of course good because I was exhausted from the emotions, bad because of the worry.  I woke up still worried.  He smiled and said, "Worry no more, our daughter's roommate had texted late last night.  She found the lanyard on the table in the dorm room.  She must have laid it down and walked out in her tired state."  Great news!!!

Ah...now that's a moment to be thankful for.  Yes, a roller coaster 24 hours.  The doom and gloom has left the building, and now we can be thankful for the happy emotions filling the house.  The true thankfulness is that things work out no matter what when you stick together as a family.  Hopefully she'll forgive her crazy parents when she awakens today.

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy your moments of thankfulness and gratitude on your Thanksgiving Day!

I took this picture early summer before she
left for school -
a frequent shoe dropping at the front door

So happy to have shoes at the front door,
thankful they brought her home for a visit!