Thankful

The list of things I’m thankful for is a mile long this year. Rather than trying to include everything, I’ll just dedicate this year’s Thanksgiving post to the people I’m thankful for.

(There are folks who apparently have nothing better to do than to cause trouble for people I mention by name on my blog, so I won’t do that, but my friends know who they are.)

So to begin: I’m thankful for the friends who supported and encouraged me during last year’s legal ordeal and put in a good word for me to the custody evaluator. They helped keep me grounded and functional.

I’m thankful for the Texas friends who offered the kids and me a place in their home when we made the decision to leave California. They made it possible for us to make a fresh start in a much better place, and have given us a wonderful “acclimation buffer.” This move would have been a vastly different experience without their generosity.

I’m thankful for the friends who agreed to store some belongings that we didn’t want to let go of but couldn’t take with us right away. The relocation would have been so much harder, especially for Luke and Elizabeth, if we had been forced to leave those sentimental treasures behind forever.

I’m thankful for the then-strangers, now-friends who adopted Gericault and Brodie and gave them a happy and loving home. We could not bring the dogs with us to DFW and no one else could take them. The fact that strangers were willing to take in two large, active, middle-aged dogs with unknown breeding and a penchant for infighting seems like nothing short of a miracle to me. You guys rock.

I’m thankful for the friend who took good care of Mahogany for me until I could find a place for her here. It was very hard for me to drive away from my horse and trust that she would make it safely through the complicated procedures involved in transporting a horse across state lines. I can’t say it was a smooth process, but it was all handled beautifully by my friend and by the vet who did the Coggins test and health cert. This same friend also took in three kittens who were orphaned by their mostly-feral mother shortly before we moved. We found them under our porch and bottle-fed them, but we couldn’t bring them with us. Now they have a wonderful home.

I’m thankful for the relative who came and helped us pack, and rented, loaded and drove a U-Haul truck from California to Texas. There are no words for what that meant to us.

Thank you, every one of you. You make the world a better place with your good works.

Happy Thanksgiving!