Thanksgiving Day

In Canada we celebrate a day of thanksgiving in October.  It's a great way to remind ourselves, whatever our religious beliefs may or may not include, that life is good no matter how challenging it may be.

In the course of the past 4 and some years I have learned many lessons.  I've always been the type of person to look for the silver lining in any clouds that may gather over my life but now I have really learned to stay in the present moment.  Because ultimately that is all we have.

I doubt that being goal oriented is going to change but somehow those goals have changed into more of a lodestone - a direction to which I am tending, not the imperative that they used to be.

I have also learned to choose my battles much more carefully.  When energy has been lacking it became much easier to see what things needed to be fought for and which could be left to slide away uncontested.

Ultimately the thing that I am most grateful for during this particular Thanksgiving Day is that I am remission - much sooner than I expected.  That I did not have to go through the entire course of 8 treatments and that I am in much better shape than I had any expection of being by this milestone.  Yes, energy is still low, but generally every day is a little bit better.  Most noticable improvement?  I am sleeping 'properly' for the first time in years and years.  What I had attributed to menopause appears to have been due to the lymphoma.  I am no longer bone weary with fatigue even though I still don't have much stamina.  But I am hopeful that as the chemo clears my system that that will return.

I am also grateful that my mother is finally moving into an apartment.  The timing could have been better, but it looks like she will be into the apartment before her surgery and winter.  Then all we have to deal with is selling her house - not something easily done in this town during the winter months.  But step by step we will deal with it.

And I am enormously grateful for the friends I have.  Walt Whitman wrote in "I Sing the Body Electric"

I have perceiv'd that to be with
     those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest
     at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing
     laughing flesh is enough.

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to all.

Another worsted wool that would not full - surprise!  Darlene lined it with a brightly coloured lining and again knitted an edge trim to bind the edges.

Currently reading Heat Rises by "Richard Castle".  I don't know who is ghost writing these books, but I love the Castle tv series.  Great dialogue, human characters, little references to Firefly if you are paying attention.  BTW, if you've never seen Firefly and like a great space cowboy romp, I highly recommend Josh Weedon's series (with a much younger Nathan Fillion).