The list!

My apologies for not writing for such a lengthy period. No excuses, simply allowed my self to get gosh-darned busy with cycling, supply teaching, and refereeing over the last couple of weeks. With Thanksgiving upon us, I felt the urge to list a few things that I'm thankful for here in 2022.

The obvious choice is my extended family. 

I'm Uber thankful for my wife, Joyce ... she is my rock, my bestie, my primo persona, my everything. She keeps me grounded, humble, happy and grateful that she finds my company desirable. Besides which, she's one "Hot Mama" and I fall deeper in love with each passing day. For those that know me, you will be empathetic to her plight, my quirks and quarks are a challenge at the best of times.

I'm grateful for mom's and my MIL's continued happiness, good health and faculties. These are scary times for seniors, and I'm forever grateful that they both have escaped hindering complications, even though my mom recently shared that she has tested positive. She's not sure where she became exposed, but she's on the backside of it and didn't require help beyond some much-needed rest.

I'm thankful for my children's continued successes, health and happiness. I cannot begin to adequately express how pleased both Joyce and I are that our children have found their path in life, found partners who complete them sufficiently to foster the happiness of sharing a life together, and have embraced that ideals we so painstakingly strove to teach them as their were growing up. They both will never know the depth of pride we feel until they themselves embark on the journey of offspring, something that both Joyce and I are eager for them to experience because we've embraced our readiness to become Nana and Papa. 

Ha Ha Ha!

I'm grateful for all of my brothers, but at this time, especially grateful that my brother Rob has such a stellar team of health professionals assisting him through his trials. It is a source of great anguish to see him struggle through the rigours of his treatments, but his "no quit" attitude shines brightly through the dogged determination to beat his affliction. 

UPDATE: I'm sincerely sorry to have not included Gary and Ruth Foster, my BIL/SIL, in my original post. I'm thankful that they continue to do well, despite some health obstacles in the past, and that they were able to be with my MIL on Thanksgiving after I tested positive. They are great people and Joyce and I wish we could be with them more often, but the distance between us is significant and makes that difficult.

I'm grateful for the plethora of friends and acquaintances I have garnered along the Path of Life because they provide me with fellowship, connection, and support. Most have come through associations fostered through my passions of athletics or education, but they will never completely understand how much they mean to my overall happiness. Of course, near and dear to my heart are my relatively new cycling friends as they so willingly accepted this "Newb" into their fold, sharing their knowledge and experience willingly and generously.

Lastly, and certainly not leastly, I'm grateful to my father who inadvertantly brought home a cornucopia of infections each night when he returned home from his work at Royal Victoria Hospital "stamping our the seeds of disease". His enduring legacy, thanks to continued exposure creating immune systems of steel, culminated in the fact that my family rarely falls ill, and it takes something significant to knock us off our feet. This was never truer than this morning when my rapid antigen test indicated that my cold symptoms were actually a wretched Covid-19 variant had finally found me after all this time. Other than a drippy nose, and constantly clearing my throat, I've escaped significant complications. 

I find Social Media a bit much at times, mostly because of the negativity and vindictiveness, my primary focus of using it being the connections that can be maintained across great distances, but the flood of well wishes that have decorated the pages of Facebook and Instagram this weekend gives me those "warm fuzzies". I wish all of my connections health, happiness and peace.

We all have a list of things to be thankful for.

Let's make sure everyone on that list gets told.