{"id":12168,"date":"2019-11-25T06:53:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T12:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/?p=12168"},"modified":"2019-11-25T06:53:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T12:53:52","slug":"things-im-thankful-for-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/?p=12168","title":{"rendered":"Things I&#8217;m Thankful For This Year."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you&#8217;re not thankful for something this week, you&#8217;re not trying.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you have a device on which to read this blog, and the time to do so, you&#8217;re living above 95% of the planet. (I made that number up &#8211; I&#8217;m thankful for a lack of shame on that count&#8230;) You could start with that &#8211; you&#8217;re welcome!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful that I&#8217;m here today. At my writer&#8217;s group meeting. Surrounded by intelligent people who love to write. The fact that I&#8217;m the only guy there is just a bonus.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful to be here, period. Too many of my friends and contemporaries have taken to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vnciwwsvNcc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;Pining for the fjords&#8221;<\/a> this past year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vnciwwsvNcc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful that I&#8217;ve been asked to serve on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecommandpost.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Command Post<\/a>. It has been an excellent opportunity to use my experience to give back to the first-responder community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful for the people, both children and adults, who brighten my world when I&#8217;m out as Santa Claus. The amount of love and interest can&#8217;t but warm your heart. I&#8217;m tired at the end of&nbsp; the day, but I get to meet so many wonderful people. And, if I do my job right, I get to heal a few broken ones as well. A hug and a few moments of quiet prayer go a long way toward healing both of us.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful for the elderly Nissan Xterra my wife dumped on me when she got her new car. God works all this stuff out, and I inherited the car at almost the exact moment I no longer drove so much. It&#8217;s public transport and airplanes for me these days, the long-distance road trips are at an end. I&#8217;m much happier with a 1 hour flight than a 9 hour drive. The manual transmission has made that choice much easier.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I am thankful that I had a friend named Stormy for over six years. She was an absolute odd-ball in many ways, and a tough girl to get to know. But she taught me a lot about patience, and unconditional love. She loved me, I loved her, but she had a hard time showing it. I miss her greatly, but the experience of living with her prepared me for the next chapter of our lives.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-11729\" src=\"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3264\" height=\"1592\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845.jpg 3264w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845-300x146.jpg 300w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845-768x375.jpg 768w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/20180628_203845-600x293.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 3264px) 100vw, 3264px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That chapter is Chewy. He&#8217;s what I&#8217;m thankful for every day. He&#8217;s a 2-year old bundle of silly puppy. He&#8217;s terribly shy and timid, but overcomes it when needed. He&#8217;s athletic, huge &#8211; compared to a Sheltie &#8211; and a slobbery kiss fiend. He&#8217;s affectionate in an inverse proportion to Stormy. Both were &#8220;damaged goods&#8221; but both have a chunk of my heart. Chewy will be around a long time &#8211; assuming he quits chewing on Kip&#8217;s yarn collection.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12161\" src=\"http:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"3024\" height=\"4032\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477.jpg 3024w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/20191115_212004-e1574044452477-450x600.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 3024px) 100vw, 3024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m also thankful that I have other skills, income streams, that allow me the opportunity to write. God has blessed me in that regard.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m thankful for my family. My wife is at the top of the list, but my mom, siblings, and cousins are all important to me.<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s enough to give you a start on your list. Oh, I&#8217;m also very thankful for my readers &#8211; you!<\/p>\n<p>(One final item: I&#8217;m thankful that the guy in the office who trims his toenails at his desk is 5 rows away and out of my line of site.)<\/p>\n\n\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re not thankful for something this week, you&#8217;re not trying.&nbsp; If you have a device on which to read this blog, and the time to do so, you&#8217;re living above 95% of the planet. (I made that number up <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/?p=12168\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[281,6495,270,2224,162,183,6552,1233,670],"class_list":["post-12168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-acfw","tag-chewy","tag-family","tag-job","tag-joseph-courtemanche","tag-kip","tag-minnesota-nice","tag-stormy","tag-thanksgiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12168"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12174,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12168\/revisions\/12174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commotioninthepews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}