Skip to main content

Giving Thanks

As a family we don't say grace or pray at the table. My guy and I are ex-Catholics (he's agnositc; I'm simply spiritual), and our children are not religious. We always try to respect the beliefs and practices of others, but the guests who will be here for Thanksgiving this year are also not religious.

During a holiday dinner I always try to steer the conversation toward good memories, or things that are upbeat. I have lots of holiday cooking stories about my dad which are very happy. I'll also admit to my own disasters, which are pretty funny. I've tried the "Thing you're most grateful for" round the table conversation, but everyone groans when I do so I gave up on that.

Bella Grace magazine sent me a link to a free printable list of conversation starters for Thanksgiving that are pretty interesting. I don't think I'll print them or hand them out, but they definitely give me some ideas.

Relating to today's post image, I want to recommend a European web site with millions of free pics that I recently discovered: Pixabay. To quote the site, "Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under the Pixabay License, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes." You can also donate to the artist if you like for the pics you use, which is what I do.

Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

Comments

nightsmusic said…
Lovely picture.

While either hubs or his dad prays at the start of our meal, we don't expect anyone who wouldn't ordinarily, to join in. And those times we've had non-family at the table, we let them know that.

SIL and I had a...falling out this year, a couple months ago now. I'm not sure what to expect Thursday, but I did tell her I have no intention of rehashing what's happened and she'll either need to move forward from here or, I don't know.

FYI, I am so behind now on my NaNo. I'm having big problems with my keyboard on my laptop. Double and triple duplicate letters, too many extra spaces, the q and x have either stopped working or I get half a dozen when I hit the key, so it's painful to try and type a lot. This has taken several minutes more than normal. *sigh*
the author said…
The photographer actually got in touch with me about my donation and thanked me. Very gracious, talented lady.

No worries on NaNo. I'll be your buddy as long as you need. :) But what about this laptop? Are you thinking about repair or replacement?
nightsmusic said…
I don't know. I really don't have the funds to replace it right now. I've tried a new driver update, but I think this goes back to the dog jumping at a noise outside and my coffee going everywhere, including the laptop. It's fine for awhile, like now, I'm not having trouble. Then I'll look at the screen and everything has turned to gibberish. It's six years old and I've rebuilt most of it, but I don't even know if I can get a new keyboard for it anymore. And it's backlit, so even if I can, the replacement probably won't be.

I'll keep plugging along, but it's frustrating.

Popular posts from this blog

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.