We're having a mini-Thanksgiving this year--since we both had to work this morning (me teaching/grading/sending nasty attendance emails, Patrick at the normal job), we decided we couldn't quite face cleaning the entire house AND cooking a massive feast for all our friends, as we did last year. Sigh. Instead, we're just cleaning the house and then having people over for drinks. As a nice highlight, it looks like one of our friends might be bringing a cake she's baked as a celebration of me finishing the latest round of rewrites on Masks & Shadows. Talk about stuff to be thankful for!

So--at the risk of sounding saccharine--I thought I would just take a moment to sit (in the middle of sending out said nasty attendance emails, which is a seriously consciousness-lowering activity) and think about all the things I am thankful for this year, as they are many. I'm so grateful for our network of immensely supportive, wonderful, interesting and loving friends, who make every part of life better and who really came out in force for our wedding. I'm so thankful for my marriage and my extended family, which together make up the emotional core of my life. I'm astoundingly grateful for the luck I've had in the past year with publications--I've gotten two contracts, two checks and one payment-in-cash for stories in the past month, which is literally incredible to me. And I'm so pleased and grateful to the people who took time to write messages to me telling me how much they'd liked "Some Girlfriends Can"--that's a first in my writing life, and a wonderful one. And thanks to everyone who reads and posts on this journal, forming an internetting community that has become such a nice part of my life during the past year or so.

I spend a lot of time feeling stressed about work load/future plans/pressures/stresses/etc. ad nauseum. But when I stop to think about it, I'm overwhelmed by the blessings I've been given.

So: Happy Thanksgiving. I hope it's a good one for everybody.