<p>Is it Thanksgiving already?</p>
<p>Nope, but after two and a half threads focusing on FA/Merit money/ the inequities of the system, life, etc., I needed something different.</p>
<p>I am grateful that all my family members & beloved ones are healthy, safe (from being victims of crimes) and happy. </p>
<p>I’m grateful to be happily married for 23 years to my first and only boyfriend (whom I had met in college & dated for 4 years).</p>
<p>I’m grateful for being blessed with two wonderful kids who are happy, healthy, self-motivated, and well-liked by their peers and teachers.</p>
<p>I’m grateful that both my kids are happily attending the same college, making life a lot easier for DH & me because we only have to deal with one set of school calendar.</p>
<p>I am first and foremost grateful for my two amazing, beautiful daughters, my loving husband (with whom I have weathered some very hard times), my small yet comfy home, and my two goofy dogs – as well as our extended family, as crazy as they are.
I am grateful for finally beating my lifelong depression in my forties with a combination of proper meds, yoga, therapy, and forgiveness.
I am grateful for pasta, garlic bread, and a glass of red wine.
I am grateful for soft, mild rain, daffodils, and the waves of Lake Michigan.
For that moment I open a new novel or settle down with my family to watch Lost or a White Sox game.
For long walks and laughing so hard it hurts.</p>
<p>additional gratefulness - I forgot to mention being grateful for friends and laughter.
Today at work someone told a silly story of herself misunderstanding something and giving a wrong response… it was so totally out there that we all were sliding out of our chairs laughing. The kind of snorting, can’t-catch-your-breath-for-an-hour, wipe your eyes moment. It’s great to have friends. Better to have friends who share their worst moments.</p>
<p>I’m grateful that a cousin, who lost her teenaged son in a car accident 18 years ago, recently became a new grandmother through her remaining son.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for great-grandparents who had the courage to leave their families to come to this country, to pursue their dreams. When they left, they knew they’d never again see their parents.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for the Internet because my kids live wherever they want on this planet, yet we communicate several times each week. </p>
<p>I’m grateful the snow has melted in Buffalo, and Spring stretches out its endless promise.</p>
<p>I’m grateful that my wonderful daughter is happy, healthy, accomplished and is living her dream of studying to become a veterinarian.</p>
<p>I’m grateful that I can afford to buy everything I need.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for two terrific parents (including a stepfather who recently came home after an extended visit to ICU and then a nursing home after a terrible fall) and five wonderful siblings.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for the pharmaceutical industry that has enabled me to live a normal life with some challenging health issues.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for a good job, even on those days when I wonder what possessed me to go to law school.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for sunny days, good friends, vacations at the beach, holidays with family, classical music and a cat whose daily antics never fail to make me laugh.</p>
<p>I would be grateful if God would explain to me why my 39 year old sister-in-law, a mother of three young children, is dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease and why my best friend since the third grade is dying of metastatic breast cancer at 49. Life is bittersweet.</p>
<p>gbesq – God bless you and grant you some comfort as you go through these hard things.</p>
<p>^Thank you for your kind words. Hope I haven’t soured the tone of this wonderful thread by sharing some bad news. Truthfully, for me, it has been a good life.</p>
<p>I am grateful that a woman has entered my life again after twelve years being on my own.</p>
<p>I am grateful that NIH has given me four more years to carry out my work.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for much of what others have already posted. In addition, H & I know we are blessed to be OK financially – and therefore able to offer a helping hand to others who are not.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for my mother flying in to share our DD’s college graduation with us. I’m grateful to DD’s university for providing her with an excellent college education and community, at an affordable rate, and then gifting her with a postgraduate travel scholarship. 
I’m grateful to my husband, who was a produce washer enrolled in community college when I met him, for putting up with me for all these years. (We both went on to grad school eventually.) And, I am grateful for my two kind, funny, loving college kids, who continue to include us in their lives. Life is good.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for being able to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday with him this weekend.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for how much my children have taught me. Their imperfections – and mine – are what make us grow.</p>
<p>I’m grateful my dh vowed for better or worse. I don’t think he realized how bad these peri-menopausal hormones can get. :)</p>
<p>Youdon’t say - this is just for you…</p>
<p>“Evelyn: I never get mad, Mrs Threadgoode. Never. The way I was raised, it was bad manners. Well, I got mad and it felt terrific. I felt like I could beat the **** out of all those punks. Excuse my language. Just beat 'em to a pulp. beat 'em till they begged for mercy. Towanda the avenger. And after I wipe out all the punks of this world, I’ll take on the wife-beaters, like Frank Bennett, and machine-gun their genitals! Towanda will go on the rampage. I’ll put tiny little bombs in Penthouse and Playboy so they’ll explode when you open them. And I’ll ban all fashion models who weigh less than 130 pounds. And I’ll give half the military budget to people of 65 and declare wrinkles sexually desirable. Towanda, righter of wrongs, queen beyond compare!
Ninny: How many of them hormones are you taking, honey?”</p>
<p>from Fried Green Tomatoes</p>
<p>wnp, :)!</p>
<p>See, my hormones even put a stop to this post. Don’t be afraid, guys.</p>
<p>I am grateful for living in a country that took me in as a 13 year old immigrant literally with $5 in my pocket and now allows me, to paraphrase Chedva, to complain about the high cost of education but also to write the checks to pay for it. God bless America.</p>
<p>Great thread!</p>
<p>I’m grateful more my loving boyfriend, Christian, who has been with me for almost a decade. The love of my life and best friend. </p>
<p>I’m grateful for my family, whose love and support have helped me through good and bad times.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for my incredible friends who give my life such profound joy and who are always making me laugh even in the most dire of circumstances.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for the success of my business which not only provides for my family, but allows me to help build a better world.</p>
<p>I’m grateful to Al Gore for inventing the internets…well maybe not Al Gore, but definitely the internets. :)</p>
<p>Right now I’m grateful for ThermaCare Heat Wraps, which are currently helping me with the minor back pain I got today from attempting to play football with people twice my size.</p>
<p>I’m grateful for the wisdom to know that every day is a new day and to open my eyes and celebrate life’s blessings.</p>
<p>And mostly, I’m grateful for a loving and caring God who is always there for me :)</p>
<p>I love the positive vibrations coming off of this thread!</p>
<p>I am so grateful for…
our family’s physical and mental health.
our jobs that provide so well for us.
our two loving, hardworking, smart children.
the secure, happy lives that we lead.
the beauty and bounty of nature.</p>
<p>We are incredibly fortunate, compared to literally billions of other people in the world.</p>
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</p>
<p>Bittersweet, for sure. Today I heard the title of a book…“Life is Like Licking Honey Off a Thorn”. Yep, that’s pretty much it. I’m enjoying reading about everyone’s honey and it’s okay to hear about the thorns, too.</p>
<p>I’m grateful that I will have a new job next fall, one that I’ve been wanting for years. And I’m grateful that I learned how to do the butterfly stroke in swimming last week! :)</p>