Every 7 years, my birthday rolls around on Thanksgiving day. This is the year! I didn’t want to spend it alone, so I made plans to go see my family in Idaho. I figured it would be the best option to not sit home and feel sad.

All week, I have been editing the gratitude journal and getting ready for travel. It is now ready to be formatted. I brought it with me as my step-dad, who I call dad,  is a printer and is going to help me format it correctly. I can hardly wait to see it finished. I found out, however, that the copier is broken, so I won’t be getting it done right now unless a miracle happens and it gets repaired Monday morning before I go home.  I am a bit bummed about it. I am grateful it will get done soon.

I am excited for it to come to fruition and share it with everyone who is interested.  The gratitude journal is a book for the whole year of prompts you read and then write a response. Each month focuses on a different topic. It is just a quick question and answer about gratitude. The idea is to bring more awareness to what we have in our lives despite life!

I also had my daughter and granddaughter visiting. Shelby loves my cat Nala, and apparently, the feeling is mutual as I saw her snuggle up next to her near the pool. My neighbor and friend Patti was also a guest. She gave me the yummiest smelling soap and lotion with huckleberry in them. We had a great time together. All of us celebrated my birthday in epic fashion with a lunch at Red Lobster and a home party concert with the parrotheads group she belongs to. I also got serenaded. It was awesome!

I also meet some of Patti’s friends who live in the area at a get-together. I like them very much. Our friend Cathy and her also came over and painted with me. I am considering starting a paint party business and they were my test subjects. They did amazing and so thankful for them being so excited for me.

My snowman painting inspired me to start putting up Christmas stuff the day before I was leaving. Might not have be the best idea because I got so tired and only a small portion is done. What I realized today was that I didn’t pack well enough for Idaho because of it. So it is, I am going with it anyway.

Thanksgiving morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport in time. It was 55 degrees out. The flight was on time for 7 a.m. departure, and off we went. In the air, we were told there was a chance we wouldn’t get to our destination but be rerouted to Provo, Utah. I really didn’t want that. During the flight, I misplaced my telephone and frantically searched everywhere, not to find it until we landed. We arrived in snow, but it was already melting, but we made it to Idaho Falls.

It rained during the day, so the snow disappeared, but still, 34 degrees was a bit different than the 76 I had had the day before. It began snowing again late afternoon and was lightly snowing until I went to bed. Woke up to melting snow this morning on black Friday. Not sure how much shopping will be done but…I have another paint party being planned.