This Thanksgiving.

It's Sunday night and I'm so sorry to see this weekend end. 

I think it was the first 4 day stretch that our little family has had in a year where we didn't have any errands, time commitments or projects to run to.  

Instead it was pure family time. What a treat. Making jewelry, playing with the bunnies, a marathon of gin rummy where I got to work on my gracious losing skills (to my 6 year old), baking, cooking, stringing Christmas lights outside, a nighttime lighted holiday parade and Thanksgiving Day. 

I have lost enough dear family members to remain thankful most every day, yes, even when the kids are driving me nuts. But this was the first year that I was so profoundly thankful for my health. 

Last December, I was diagnosed with an awful auto-immune disease. The severity of which threw my family into a tailspin of re-prioritizing and preparing for the worst while feverishly researching best possible outcomes.

We moved back to my husband's favorite town- something he'd been asking to do for 8 years. Suddenly, if caretaker was to be his new role, I thought it best that he be surrounded by his most effective stress reliever- nature. 

I changed everything from my diet (autoimmune paleo); my stress levels- learned to worry less and lower my expectations; started meditating, prioritizing sleep, got right with God and perhaps the most challenging, refused my neurologist's recommendation to start drugs with debilitating side-effects and instead started taking fistfuls of vitamins.

Then in July, they retested and imagine that, something worked. The areas of concern had shrunken to the point that the dr could no longer give me that diagnosis. 

"My pet bunny", "our dogs", "our family"; these were the answers given by the girls as we went around the Thanksgiving table. A pause of silence and then,"I am thankful that we are all healthy" - my husband's wish spoken in a slightly quavering voice that made my eyes well up. Me too, thank you God for my health.

So this weekend, I enjoyed every minute with my sweet family, with an awareness of how fortunate I truly am. 

I'll never forget this Thanksgiving and I doubt my family will either.