With Gratitude . . .

We live in a house at the top of the hill with the largest trees of anyone in the neighborhood in our back yard. From the end of October until mid-December, much of my exercise comes in the form of "engaging my core" while raking leaves. Though I do love all of the autumn-fired hues of leaves while they're on the trees, cleaning them up once they've left their summer home is a dreaded task. This is my love-hate relationship with fall.

But last week I found some leaves that really brought me joy. We've have customarily made a Tom Turkey each year and written our blessings on his feathers for the kids to pin on, but this year I decided to add a different twist. With the help of dear Doezie who was visiting (send pictures please so I can document our fun), I cut out many, many leaf shapes. As a family we wrote things for which we were grateful on each leaf and then strung them with some jute twine. I cut out a bunch of extra leaves too, hoping my kids would see how truly blessed we are and want to write more in their off time. Guess what?! They did and even asked me to cut out more leaves.

The last task was to find the appropriate tree to hang our leaves on. Having grown up under the tutelage of the Queen Vee whose midnight landscape "pruning" runs are legendary, I felt I had the skills to select an appropriate specimen without hurting the environment or getting caught. My awesome branch came from the area behind the tennis courts in our community - an area I'd say is rarely appreciated . . . but now will be by me - especially with Christmas coming! A bucket, some floral foam and some decorative moss completed this project. The kids are thrilled with how it turned out and I'm working on a way to spray paint it and use the branch again for Christmas.

Gratitude is what Thanksgiving is all about and I'm really loving Thanksgiving this year because I have oh, so much to be grateful for. Go ahead, start counting your blessings!