On Pumpkin Carving and Gratitude

This year we grew two pumpkins in our garden. One is from a seed that I planted. That vine grew up and over the fence into the neighbor's yard, growing a pumpkin as it dangled above the ground into the strangest shape. It was flat on one side and so rounded on the bottom there was no way for it to stand on end normally. The other pumpkin grew spontaneously, and grew into the most perfectly shaped, beautiful pumpkin I've ever seen. 

Marquis turned the strangely shaped one into an adorable little pig for Princess. Sweetheart and I teamed up to turn the perfect one into a classic jack'o'lantern. Sweetheart drew the face on with a marker and I did the knife work, and between the two of us we were very pleased with the finished product. 

In a completely unrelated line of rambling, late, late tonight, so late it will actually be tomorrow morning, our dear CG will be with us. Thank goodness for Thanksgiving, we can't wait to see her! And since Thanksgiving is this week, it makes me think of gratitude. To be honest, I think I'm pretty good at being grateful. I sure have an incredibly good life, more than I deserve, and I try to keep an awareness of that and a sense of gratitude in my life every day. I also believe that the practice of being grateful is completely necessary; both for our emotional and spiritual well being. 

But this year I have been thinking of something a little different. I think it's fantastic that we have a day to focus on gratitude each year. But maybe what this world needs is a day to focus on making our gratitude known. Do we say thank you enough? Who can you say thank you to today? How much brighter would this world be if we gook a few minutes to send an email or make a phone call to thank someone for all they do for us? What if we sat down with a stack of Thank You cards and took the time to pen out exactly why we are grateful for someone, and then send that off? What kind of difference what that make in the world? 

Just a little food for thought. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, eat some pumpkin pie for me!