Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving - 2012

Beautiful day. Beautiful family. And friends. And food. Couple of striking thoughts came to mind. Rather than narrate them, I'll just spit them out.

First: mine is a generation of men raised by women. And I need to spend more time with Grandma, while I can. At 85 she is in great shape. But things spin out of control quickly. It was great to see her, give her a ride home, just hug her and let her know I love her. Sometimes, she doesn't remember. And she usually asks me if I've lost a lot of weight recently. I'll miss that. So I enjoy it while it last.

Second: Amid the usual Facebook noise, I spotted a quote I enjoyed:
It's not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy.
And I think that holds true for me. When I switched from the endless pursuit of material wealth to the enjoyment of life, people, and experiences around me, I was far more thankful for everything I had. And happiness followed. Sure, I had a bigger house, I had more computers, we had new cars, and made much more money. But were we happier? Sadly, no. We weren't. But the only constant in our lives is that everything changes. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes. Well, sometimes not better.

Third: I read an article that suggested during Thanksgiving, the average person consumes up to 4500 calories. To put that in perspective it is almost 3 times the average daily consumption. To work it off would require four straight hours of jogging. A full blown marathon. Or nearly four hours of crazy, high impact aerobics. I'm pretty sure the list of people planning to do that level of activity contains exactly ZERO names. (At least for people in my neck of the woods.) So I moderated, across two lunches. No rolls. No pie. No sweat tea. Just a bit of stuffing. And mainly turkey.

Finally: I actually STARTED my day with a private little 5K run. Record pace. Record time. Twenty five minutes and some change. No intervals. No water. Just running and breaking personal records. All of which, I'm thankful for!

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