Thank FULL

Everywhere you look in November, people are saying what they are thankful for. We even do it! Next week, as my family is gathered around multiple tables, we'll pass around the Turkey Hat and say what we're thankful for...health, family, jobs, etc. One year we even made a list of things that we were thankful for that was as long as our living room...a good 30 feet! My life is full of wonderful blessings but I've been thinking about a couple of them in particular lately... THERMOSTATS AND FURNACES I don't even want to think about the work the pioneers had to do to get warm in the winter. Getting up in the freezing morning and bringing in wood before you can even get the fire going sounds mostly miserable to me! Then there's the coal furnace. Now I've been in houses with coal heat and it really is a wonderfully warm cozy heat but I'm thankful for a furnace that I don't have to haul it, load it, dump it, shovel it, damper it and clean it! With a thermostat and furnace, my life is blessed. I don't even have to touch the thermostat more than twice a year (It's a programmable one...I highly recommend them!) When it's cold...I get heat! All I have to do is pay the bill! SAFETY I live in a place where the crime rate is higher than it used to be...up until a few years ago I never locked my back door! But we really do live in a secure community. I just finished reading a book about a family in the 1860s. Every evening they had to lock the gates, bolt the doors, shutter the windows, lock inside doors, secure the guard dog and walk the grounds at night to feel safe. The most I have to worry about is locking my doors and turning on the porch light. I'm thankful for police that help us to have security and relative peace. TAX $$$s AT WORK I know...everyone complains about the Big Bad Government and taxes, but I'm thankful for several government programs that I pay taxes for. Several years ago I got a flat tire on my way to work. Within a minute or two, a big flashy-light Department of Transportation truck pulled up in back of me. He jumped out, jacked up my car and had the tire changed in a matter of minutes. I tried to pay him for his services but he said it was a government service and this was my tax dollars at work! Wow! Who knew that my taxes would actually help me?! Then there's the Library for the Blind. My mother has macular degeneration and has a hard time seeing, but my (and your) tax dollars bless her life every day! She gets a free tape player from the Blind Library and has access to thousands and thousands of books and magazines on tape...all at no cost to her! And I don't have to run around and pick any of this stuff up...they mail everything back and forth for nothing! Along with Senior Centers and Senior Transportation...all at little or no cost...my life-and time-is blessed.