Happy Thanksgiving/A Little Christmas Shopping

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!

I'm not going to presume that just because a day has been declared the day of thankfulness that all of you are swelling with profuse thanks today. I've had some years when I would have dearly welcomed a one-day hibernation until this day passed. It was too hard to pretend to be all happy and thankful when life was hard, and I don't even like Thanksgiving food, to boot!

So if today is that day for you, if your heart is heavy for whatever reason, I send a little bloggery hug your way today. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay to struggle to be thankful. It's okay to know you have a million things you should be thankful for, but somehow you can only focus on what brings hurt.

But can I encourage you to find a moment sometime today when you sit until you think of one thing you are thankful for? Genuinely, legitimately thankful for? And then give thanks. It may not change everything, but it might just bring a measure of joy that you hadn't known was still inside you.

I know I told you this last week, but it bears repeating: I am thankful for all of you. You travel this way {some of you every day} to check in on the latest in our world. You love us. You encourage us. You welcome us into your lives with your comments or your own blogs, and I am thankful for you.

Someone else I'm thankful for on this day is the guy who has come to make an annual Christmas shopping trip way more fun than it should be. {Also...every day. He makes every day more fun than it should be.}

But anyway, yes, we did our Christmas shopping last Saturday. We awakened to the first snow flurries of the year, which seemed very appropriate for a Christmas shopping day. It was actually a pretty miserable weather day for driving around and running through parking lots and hauling packages, but that didn't seem to stop the greater population of Indiana from venturing forth to all the stores.

We started with a breakfast date, because everyone knows you can't shop on an empty stomach:

We concluded we looked terrible. TERRIBLE. But then again, it was early.

I was a bit ridiculous with my organization. I had made out lists of everyone we needed to shop for, and I had the whole thing sticky-noted and color coded and hole-punched! I took some ribbing from fellow customers and workers alike, but I stand by my system!

Ryan takes his shopping seriously:

We knocked out a lot of our list that morning {those stories are on the podcast if you missed it}, and then we stopped for a little lunch and blew back to our car:

You should have seen Ryan's hair.

We did more shopping, and at the end of our push/shove through an overcrowded Costco, I told Ryan I just needed a cookie. JUST GET ME A COOKIE.

{Also: somebody get me some lipstick!}

We had the best little date in the back corner of the Panera. Fresh brew and a snacklet.

I was thankful for the cookie, too, by the way.

Ryan, thanks for a fun day out, for dropping me off/picking me up at the doors and carrying the bags. You are a great shopping partner! :)

And thanks for all you do every day. I am so thankful for you! :)