Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Updates, reminder, & be thankful

Hi there everyone!

Just a quick note …

Updates: I have added information to some pages:  Writers’ Helps, Suicide Crisis Lines, and Books I read in 2017 – frequent updates there. You’re welcome to visit often and see what’s new. 

Reminder:  On November 30 I will be drawing a name from the comments on THIS POST and that person will win one of Janet Sketchley’s exciting suspense novels. Be sure to leave a comment, and please pass the news on to your friends. You might want to mention it on Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere else you have friends who could be interested. Spread the word about Janet’s books!

And be thankful:

“Be kind. Be thoughtful. Be genuine.
But most of all, be thankful.”  —Unknown

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated in Canada, the United States, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. So, Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends. (Our Canadian Thanksgiving was in October.)

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  :0) 

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Fun Quiz: how long would you survive an alien invasion?

Hello, Everyone!

Today I thought you might enjoy another fun quiz. This one helps you find out if you would survive an extraterrestrial alien invasion. Of course, it is very important to know this. One must be ready at all times!  (snicker)

alien-spaceshipI have much to do on my week home, starting later this morning, which means my blogging could remain scanty for awhile. There are things I am trying to complete, change, and redirect in my life, and it all takes time when setting a new course. (nautical term)  I will be checking here every day, though, hoping for new comments from you. 🙂  Or you can always send me an email if you prefer. Go to contact page for that if you don’t know my email address.

I already wished a Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends and readers; what are your plans? That day I should have another installment of Writing the Third Dimension to share with you. I expect you’re all very busy getting ready to cook, travel to connect with others, eat a lot, and then shop a lot the next day. Be careful out there!

Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? I only had a few things, then this week I managed to get out to a Christmas shopping party at which I found some nice items for all my daughters. It’s alarming how little time remains until December 25!

Enough chatter, did I hear you say? Okay, now for …

alien-spaceshipthe QUIZ  (click here)

Would you survive an extraterrestrial alien invasion? Do tell!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

 

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends and readers!

As you may know, in Canada we celebrated ours in October. There were twelve of us at Dad’s dining-room table this year. 

I hope you all have a fun, amazing wonderful get-together, free of angst and strife. Enjoy your family and friends.

This post is brief. A much longer one is coming right after it.

Blessings to all!

Romans 8:28 : And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, CANADA!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, CANADA!

It’s a beautiful Autumn day here in Nova Scotia … well, if you ignore that it’s overcast. I don’t mind because we enjoyed a fabulous September, and so far October isn’t even as cold as in many past years.

There is much for which to be thankful.  A few for me:

  • My husband entered early retirement October 1;  Yay!
  • He is stiff and sore but no serious injuries to himself or his vehicle when another vehicle hit him from behind after the one behind it didn’t stop;
  • All our girls are living not far from us again, at least for awhile;
  • Dad is still with us at age 90, still knows us, and is in good cheer most of the time;
  • We’ll probably have 15 at our Thanksgiving table today to share a meal together.
  • There are SO MANY more things I thank God for I could go on and on and on.

thankful

How about you? What are you thankful for today?

A Thanksgiving gift for you

Canadian Thanksgiving was in October, but today is Thanksgiving Day for all my friends and readers in the United States. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

I am doing something a little different this morning by including a little gift for you who are celebrating this occasion. Just click on the link at the bottom of this post. It takes you to a safe site – EGreetings.com – and right to the card I selected for you. There is no special message there as would normally be if I were to email it to all of you. Instead here is my message, which is for everyone whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not:

Take a few minutes today to think about all there is in your life for which to be thankful. Hold onto that feeling of thankfulness and carry it with you. A grateful heart makes a huge difference in how one walks through each day.

For those who are thankful to our Creator GOD:

O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures for ever! – Psalm 107:1

O come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. – Psalm 95:1,2

click here for your card    It is on a safe site.

I appreciate and am thankful for all of you who visit me from wherever you are in the world. Have a wonderful, special, creative, beautiful day full of happy thoughts. 🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

My word is GRATEFUL: Remembrance and Thanksgiving

Lately, I have been finding it hard to write. If you have been following my progress during NaNoWriMo you will have noticed there is not much moving forward the past few days. I am so far behind now there is little hope for me to end the challenge with a high word count. I’m even wondering if I will finish this novel no matter how many words it takes to get there.

For some people, when things are going wrong in their lives, or they are just having a down time, they write. It helps them through it. But for me … I can’t seem to think that way. The creativity gets put on hold by whatever is troubling me. I seem to fall victim to my emotions, and that’s not a good thing.

Remembrance Day is a special day for this family. Our dad is a WWII veteran and we are very proud of him, especially as he was one of the young Canadian soldiers who bravely liberated the Netherlands. For years, with Dad we have attended the ceremonies and the Veterans’ dinner following the special service. This year things got a bit confused and it was difficult for awhile – my week “on duty” so it was more upsetting for me. It got straightened out but left me with a troubled heart. That affected everything since I just can’t seem to separate myself from it all even when I get away for my week at home. I think if I were good at writing through things, I would have had a lot more done on my novel by now!

Last Thursday was my birthday. I won’t say which birthday, I’ll just leave that for you to guess if you want to.  I’d been talking to God, telling Him (as if He didn’t already know, but I had to admit it) that I need help. I need help to get through this. The day before my birthday two friends called me, two friends totally apart from one another and whom I hadn’t talked with in awhile. Neither knew my of increased stress, both conversations were ministering to my need.

The next morning, November 16, a really interesting thing happened when I woke before my feet even hit the floor.

First, by way of explanation — There is someone who has a website or blog who chooses a word for herself at the beginning of each year, and challenges others to do the same. That word – individual to each person – is to be their word by which to live all that year. (I’m sorry I don’t recall who that person is, but if you know please remind me in a comment.) I had tried to come up with a word for myself, but nothing came to me. What is fascinating to me is that as I was waking on the morning of my birthday  .. there it was! My word. GRATEFUL.

My word is GRATEFUL!

Now, let me tell you, that word makes a difference. The trick is to remind myself of it in the midst of disappointment, worry creeping in, feelings of inadequacy, frustration, sadness, depression raising its ugly head, anger over things beyond my control … GRATEFUL chases it all away!  

Notice my word is not gratefulness, but I feel gratefulness when I am grateful. 🙂

Here is the definition for gratefulness: 

  • warm friendly feelings of gratitude [synonyms: thankfulness, appreciativeness]

The definition for grateful:

  • 1: feeling or showing gratitude; “a grateful heart”; “grateful for the tree’s shade”; “a thankful smile” [synonym:thankful] [antonym: ungrateful]
  • 2: affording comfort or pleasure; “the grateful warmth of the fire”

When negative feelings or thoughts come upon me, I remind myself that I am grateful or I have much to be grateful for and those negatives are washed away. It’s an attitude of gratitude that has to become habit for it to be most effective. (I did remember to thank God from my grateful heart for the help He sent me.)

Our Canadian Thanksgiving was October 8, USA’s Thanksgiving is coming up on November 22, so it seems quite fitting to have this word now. Try it out and see what it does for you.

My questions to you are:

  1. Do life’s struggles set your writing free? or does writing free you during times of stress?
  2. If you write when life hits you hard, how do you do it?
  3. Do you have a word to live by for this year?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!  🙂

Thanksgiving and being thankful

I’ve been absent.  Did you notice?

My blog ideas have run low. Unfortunately, I have not kept up my writing of story drafts for 12×12 in 2012, either. My Muse is a little weary, I guess.

I’m behind in reading emails, sending responses to things, reading other writers’ blogs.  But wait, there’s more …

Because of a fall that happened on Labour Day, and from which I’m still recovering, I’m going for laser treatments on my knee. It may be another month before the healing is complete, but now there is much less pain and I’m starting to sleep a little better – for which I’m thankful.

Can anyone out there relate to the following? …

When on my alternating weeks at home I have had such a very frustrating time with my internet service. We have Fibre Optics at Dad’s, but the phone company we deal with has not found a feasible way to even bring high-speed out my way, and the dial-up connection is painfully slow. How slow is it, did I hear you ask? So slow that I have nearly nodded off while waiting for pages (even here on my blog) to load.

True story! The longer I kept dial-up, the worse the service became. How long could you put up with that? I don’t know how I did it for as long as I did, but it had become such a point of stress for me that I finally said NO MORE!

We now have wireless internet – for which I’m thankful. It’s been all of one day, I’m already feeling better, and I LOVE IT! There was far too much stress the other way. My blogging, business stuff, emails, Skype calling, everything … had become such a chore, and with being a caregiver now, too, I was about to walk over the edge. I am bordering on the blues leading to depression, and something had to change. The Internet c0nnection I now have at home is much faster, which gives me breathing space. (If you know anything about stress, depression, anxiety .. you will understand about breathing space.)

What bothers me is I’m so far behind – according to my own expectations – and it seems my weeks at home are not long enough. I just settle in when it’s time to go again. But that is my life now, for as long as it takes, and we can still make this work – for which I’m thankful.

The air has an Autumn chill, the leaves are changing colour, the Fall harvest is being gathered, and here in Canada it is Thanksgiving weekend. Today is a truly beautiful day – for which I’m thankful.

To close, I’m including a few images captured this morning. I thought you might enjoy these wonderful signs of the season. Descriptions are below.

 
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1. Morning fog rising off the river – a view from my deck                     
2.  A showing of colourful leaves above the river
3 & 4.  Cortland apples (for pies) – given to us yesterday by a neighbour
5 & 6.  Three varieties of squash from my parents-in-law’s and our garden
7.  Only sunflower that grew for me this year; seed dropped by birds in planter! Bloom’s end.    
8. Leaves changing colour on a tree in our yard.

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 Let’s all be thankful for God has blessed us.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL CANADIANS!

For what are YOU thankful?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings!