I will not rest until I have you holding a Coke,..

wearing your own shoe, playing a Sega game featuring you, while singing your own song in a new commercial, starring you, broadcast during the Superbowl, in a game that you are winning, and I will not sleep until that happens. I’ll give you fifteen minutes to call me back.

  1. I am grateful for delicious lemon ricotta pancakes made by my sister-in-law. They are heavenly!
  2. I am grateful for 10 hours of sleep.
  3. I am grateful that I grew up in a family that likes to play sports, as opposed to watch them on t.v. I’m not sure why my little brother is now trying to dissent from a long standing family tradition of non-sports-watching, but I don’t like it one bit. Sure, we will all enjoy the occasional “big game” on the t.v., but it is not a normal family activity.
  4. I am grateful that my brother and sister-in-law are such good examples of parenting. Granted, they do have a pretty sweet child, but I think part of the reason he is so sweet is that they love him unconditionally and have rules. He knows when it’s nap time, it’s nap time. Even if he isn’t that tired, he will happily rest in his bed for “nap time”.
  5. I am grateful for Chevy’s chips and salsa…and fajitas. I don’t understand why the one in Orem closed, but I love that we manage to make it there just about every other time I’m in Vegas. Even if our server was crap…it was still yummy!

Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.

John Henry Jowett

I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda

  1. I am grateful for my first Black Friday shopping experience (at least the first one where I got up at 5 am trying and stood in line to get into a store)…and my brand new camera (belated birthday gift purchased with gift cards) that I purchased on said shopping trip. I can now take self-portraits with ease and shoot videos. Woohoo!
  2. I am grateful for the oyster bed that now lives at my brother’s house. What’s an “oyster bed”? you ask. It’s actually a huge papasan couch that my grandparents purchased while living in Japan many moons ago and currently the “nest” where I’ve been sleeping.
  3. I am grateful for blow dryers and flat irons.
  4. I am grateful tennis shoes that have been tied perfectly so that I can just slip them on.
  5. I am grateful for new perfume and its roll-on form. It is absolutely fantastic.

Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Christmas is not "clothing optional" this year – we have a guest.

  1. I am grateful for new traditions…specifically the 5k Justin and I ran this morning. And I have to say, while I don’t love the way I look, it’s not bad for 6:30 am with no makeup.

  1. I am grateful for yummy, yummy Thanksgiving dinner.

  1. I am grateful for old traditions…specifically orange rolls.

  1. I am grateful that my brother also worked at Williams-Sonoma, meaning his kitchen is outfitted as well as (if not better than) my own.
  2. I am grateful that, even though I have not run since the marathon due to injury and illness, my body complied as I forced it to run 3.1 miles this morning…a little faster than I ever have before.

Forever on Thanksgiving Day, The heart will find the pathway home.

Wilbur D. Nesbit

Stand up, on this Thanksgiving Day, stand upon your feet. Believe in man. Soberly and with clear eyes, believe in your own time and place. There is not, and there never has been a better time, or a better place to live in.

Phillips Brooks

he’d like to meet a fish who wasn’t afraid of his dark chocolate layer

  1. I am grateful for chocolate. Period. And the quiz result above is totally appropriate.
  2. I am grateful for airplanes, making it possible for me to spend Thanksgiving in Las Vegas.
  3. I am grateful for the nice guy who stood up on the bus from the economy lot so I could sit down. I would have been fine standing, but it was really nice.
  4. I am grateful for Justin and Cherity who are happy to have me come to their house every year for Turkey Day.
  5. I am grateful for a job where we have Thanksgiving and the Friday after it off. It was the same last year, but the four years previous, I was always back to work on Friday…and that was not fun.
The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

H. U. Westermayer

the dishes are done, man

  1. I am grateful for my fabulous rubber gloves. They are thick and lined with some kind of fabric so that my hands never get gross inside. While I would definitely prefer to have a dishwasher, the rubber gloves make all of the hand washing bearable.
  2. I am grateful that I am able to see God’s hands in my life regularly. I could seriously create a whole blog just about this one topic. It is amazing.
  3. I am grateful for friends who are honest, even when I might not want to hear what they have to say. Not only are they always good for advice, when they say something that cheers me up, I know that what they are saying is true.
  4. I am grateful for Starbucks hot chocolate and pumpkin scones.
  5. I am grateful for kind, generous people who are willing to open their home to me (and their door in the wee hours of the morning) with just over a week’s notice so that I have somewhere to stay when I interview at my next school.

Thank God every day when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

Basil Carpenter