Giving Thanks for the Little Things

As Thanksgiving is tomorrow, I’d like to get in the spirit of the holiday and reflect upon some of the things for which I am truly thankful.

Of course, I’m completely grateful for all the usual stuff: a husband and a daughter whom I love more every single day even though I may want to throttle them occasionally, good health, enough food, comfortable shelter and smart and ridiculously funny family and friends. 

>shakes head like Keanu Reeves in “Parenthood” because introspection seems so out of character<

But I also wanted to mention some of the oft-overlooked, but truly important things that have really made a difference this year. Things that improved the quality of — and my general outlook on — daily life. As such, here is supplemental list of things for which I am thankful:

• The $7.95 I spent on a Williams-Sonoma strawberry huller. At the rate my child consumes strawberries, this gadget that enables her to safety hull them herself is priceless.
• I am thankful that I have a , to which I can now add the word “hull.”
• Finally understanding what “steampunk” means. (Now I can hang with the cool kids.)
• Realizing how lucky I am to have neighbors who find the same things funny as I do — things like leaving rabbit heads in mailboxes.
• The young cashier at the grocery store, who after I bought groceries and a bottle of wine one evening and declined his offer of “Do you need any help carrying that to the car?” followed up with a “Do you need any help with the wine?” and a shy smile.
• Autocorrect on my smart phone. No matter how many times it replaces intended words with nonsense words, it continues to make me laugh. Related, I’m totally thankful for euphemisms.
• I am thankful that in almost five years, my employer, our customers, and most of the parents in my daughter’s school have never discovered that I write a blog titled Brutalism.
• Really impractical shoes.  
• The fact that sharing photos was not nearly as simple or widespread when I was in college and in my early 20s. (It would have been so embarrassing to have all those photos of me at the library and bible study floating around.)

And finally, the thing for which I most thankful:

• That in three days, I will not have to hear the term “Black Friday” for another whole year.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!