A Circle of Thanks.

Thanksgiving.

Today we are thankful for all we have:

Family and Friends
the many blessings of our relationships.

We give thanks for our homes

and hoards of other material things we have been blessed with.

We are thankful for our church

for our Savior,

and  the many spiritual blessings we have.

We are in gratitude for our jobs,
for our bank accounts,
And all the financial provisions we enjoy.

But then I started thinking...

How about the not-so-good things that we have in our lives?

Should we be thankful for those things, too?

Financial worries

Failed relationships

Bad decisions

Arguments
Broken dreams

and many other things we have been faced with.

Perhaps we ought to be thankful for the lessons learned from
tough experiences, also?

I think the hard things we go through shape us and

often give us:

humility

compassion

patience

love
understanding

contentment

and...

thankfulness.

Kind of like  a circle of thanks, isn't it?

My turkey is on the table!   

Puzzling Puzzle

Last January, when remodeling the bathroom, there were

several things found between the upstairs & downstairs floors.

One of the things was an envelope with torn pieces of

paper.  Trying to put them together is quite a project,

but I made a little headway today!

The story is written on 5 or 6 small sheets of

paper, each page is about the size of a postcard.

    I do have my suspicions as to which of

my brothers did this!

The story begins with Brad Jones, who is

at the box office of a burlesque show.

Bits and pieces are giving me a general

idea of the story, but I will wait until I

have finished putting it together.

So far, I haven't seen anything that is so terrible

that the paper had to be shredded and hidden under

the bathroom floor, but of course back in the day,

writing about a guy going to a burlesque show

might have been just a tad scandalous,

especially if our parents had seen this.

I wonder who wrote this??

November Sunset

The other evening, I was talking on the phone and happened to look out

the kitchen window.   The sunset was just gorgeous!  

Still talking on the phone, I grabbed my little camera

and opened the back door & snapped a couple of pictures.

There is no way no captivate the beauty of the sunset 

with my camera, but I still think they are pretty cool.

Summertime

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took this summer.

Just as we were leaving Ten Mile Lake Cemetery, I "had" 

to take this.    The sun was soon setting, and it was a

gorgeous evening!

Oh, I am missing summer already!!

(For those who don't know - my sister and I have

been taking pictures of tombstones in the area for

the Historical Society.   We completed 9 cemeteries.

Grandma's farm

My grandma & grandpa's farm, just south of Dalton.

My mom and her 6 siblings grew up here.  The barn

still stands, but the house has been replaced.   The

smaller building in the foreground behind the trees is

the chicken coop.   I remember the chickens scratching

around the yard.  The lake in the lower corner is Hansel Lake.

Christmas at Grandma's circa 1953-55.    From left to right are:

Carl Synstelien, Palma Synstelien, Esther Dahlager and Grandma.

Pretty stylish living room, huh?   The curtains were PLASTIC, 

but matched the wallpaper.   But I'm lovin' the Christmas tree

with the larger lights and tinsel - they don't make tinsel like they used too!