"It's Thanksgiving Time...In The City..."

Okay, so that's not exactly how the song goes. But the time is here for one of my favourite holidays. The truth is, we should make a habit of giving thanks all year round for what we have instead of just one day of the year. For me, there are many things that I appreciate more each day. Here are a few:

1) My job.

Now more then ever! If you ever read the papers, we just laid off 220 people. Now granted, they were mostly from IT and underwriting. Just the fact that most of the layoffs came from IT lets us know how saturated this market is. It was great 15 years ago, but now…thin ice sometimes. It was also one year ago this week that the debacle at Aegon happened which will burn like a fire in me for the rest of my life. Not in a bad way though, but in a way that I will always take care of what I need to (and then some) in my work life. I think Healthmarkets is a way better company anyway simply because people around here have a sense of humour about things. No one ever laughed at Aegon. No one. Ever. Like a bunch of mindless automatons. But here we seem to be part of a large extended family.

2) My family

I tell Emmy that the four of us are like the wheels on a car: if one isn't right, the the car doesn't go. I told her last night that one of the things I am most proud of her for is her ability to express her feelings when she is bothered about something. Zach is learning how to do that as well, although he is much louder ha ha. She is excited because this is the weekend we put up the Christmas tree and write her letter to Santa Claus! Here is the letter she wrote last year:



Now I have a feeling this year she won't be asking for much of these things. She has grown up so much and has interests in just about everything it may be a challenge to get something great for her. I still don't know what I am going to get for Cari, although she keeps hinting at what she got me will be super duper. They have the camcorder I like at Walmart for $249 on "Black Friday" this week which we may (hopefully) acquire. But I love 'em all unconditionally.

I guess I'm thankful for other things too, but it's a lot of work trying to categorize everything sometimes. This shall be our best Christmas ever.