11/7/22, Time is Flying

Hi Everyone,

I hope that all is well with you, and everything is going smoothly. Where does the time go? It seems like only days ago, it was early September and we were easing into fall after the summer. And now you blink, and it’s November. November!! Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving is two weeks away. That doesn’t seem possible. But there it is.

I have been buried in work, so not paying attention to the Fall speeding by. I am currently working on a first draft, and two re-writes (of a final draft, and a set of galleys/text proofs). This time of year is always heavy writing season for me. And I’m back on schedule. I felt slowed down after the Pandemic last year, but am back at my usual pace again.

I hope your holiday plans are shaping up as you want them to. Once our kids are grown we have to be flexible and understanding about their schedules, their jobs, their in laws, their lives. Only two of my children are coming home for Thanksgiving, but I’m grateful to have them. And all except one are coming home for Christmas. It’s VERY hard to get everyone together once they have flown the nest and have commitments of their own, particularly once they are married and have another family to consider. So I’m grateful for the time we get and the holidays we can share.

I know how challenging holidays can be. People live far from their families now and work in other cities. Travel is expensive and employers not always amenable to employees taking extra time off to make travel work. So many people are not with their families on Thanksgiving, or any of the holidays. It’s a great time to reach out to people we know will be alone, far from their home bases and families. Before I married and had so many children, I remember a lonely Thanksgiving alone in a city that was new to me then. I read in a religious article a quote from the Bible that said “God places the solitary in families”. And he did. I had a lovely Thanksgiving, invited by new people I barely knew but were incredibly kind to me. A year later I was married and had a joyous Thanksgiving. And not long after that, a few years later, I had a family of my own. And I certainly was put in a big family, and was no longer solitary!!!

If this is an off year for you, if your plans are not shaping up as you hoped, try to be flexible about what plans are available, or even reach out to others in your same situation, who don’t have their own families to be with this year. Oddly, the years I expected to be the most difficult, have almost always turned out to be the most fun, in a completely free-form unexpected way. We may not get our typical traditional holiday, but maybe it will be even more special when you least expect it.

I hope you’ll have a wonderful, warm, loving Thanksgiving however you choose to spend it, and with whom. It’s a time to give thanks for our blessings, and sometimes our blessings don’t show up exactly as we thought they would, but it may turn out to be even better than you hoped, especially if you reach out to someone else.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, with much love, Danielle