Happy Thanksgiving! (and blog recycling)

Well, it's the middle o' the night and it appears that the parents of the wheezy and vomity kids and other peds ED frequenters have decided that they should keep them at home until the turkey is done rather than let an intern mess with their children (among other fun things including discovering "trepanation" of a bloody nail, I traumatically did a spinal tap on a little 2 year old earlier in the evening... in any case, I digress...).

I don't have too much to write and, at this hour (I really don't sleep very well in the day time), don't have the mental reserve to be very original or eloquent about all that I am thankful for. However, I will say that I do have very much to be thankful for.

I am thankful first of all for Wendi's wonderful news-- that the baby they will be taking home in MAY (!!!!!!) is a little growing boy in Bri's belly. This was such cool news to find out on my birthday! And I wanted to thank everyone for the bday wishes and lovely cards/assorted packages that graced my mailbox this past week :) It made me feel like being one year older isn't all that terrible, even though I haven't accomplished very much since the last birthday and am getting close to deciding to get a bunch of cats. I'm thankful that, later today, I will be reunited with my family, and with my awesome friend Lesley, who is planning to drive up to MSP from Roch to hang out with me in the airport during my layover!!!!

And so here I recycle my favorite quotes from M.J. Ryan's book Attitudes of Gratitude, on which I posted back in July of this year:

It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God offers us because, at the moment, we expected some other good. -C.S. Lewis

If you haven't got all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want. -Anonymous

Forgiveness leads to gratitude, and not just gratitude in general but, in a beautifully healing movement, to an outpouring of appreciation for the very things that caused such pain in the first place. Thus is our suffering redeemed.

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself.
Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
- Lao Tzu

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances...
-Victor Frankl

If there is to be any peace at all, it will be through being, not having. -Henry Miller

Joy is prayer.
Joy is strength.
Joy is love.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
She gives most who gives with joy.
-Mother Teresa

The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be. -Shakti Gawain

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough, and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion to clarity...
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melody Beattie

As you wander on through life, sister/brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole.
-Sign in the Mayflower Coffee Shop, Chicago

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!