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The start for a most interesting Thanksgiving
dinner, courtesy of Sylvia and Bernhard. |
I hope that each and everyone of you enjoyed a delightful Thanksgiving shared with friends and family. This is a holiday conceived in the concept of counting blessings rather than problems, reflection, and the sharing of bounty.
My dearest friend and I value tradition, and lean a bit toward the nostalgic side of life, but not to the point of constriction. As an example, consider our dinner this Thanksgiving.
In October, just a few days before hitting the road on our epic twelve state, 4,800-mile epic odyssey, a box arrived with a variety of the foods we savored while in Germany. As we had enjoyed a most memorable Thanksgiving dinner last year with Sylvia and Bernhard, friends from Germany who had sent the delightful package, we decided that a German dinner would replace traditional turkey and dressing this year.
A surprise visit from our son, his fiance, and two of our grandchildren ensured it was a most memorable Thanksgiving. And to further add to our international holiday dinner, we enjoyed Swiss chocolate and Dutch licorice for desert.
The holiday, good food, and visit with family provided a much needed respite from work, pressing problems in the form of a Windows update induced computer malfunction, and some promotional projects that are hoped to provide higher visibility. Overall I am quite fortunate but still, sometimes the long hours and challenges associated with making a living outside the realm of the traditional nine to five job, and providing a service to the community, wear me a bit thin.
The next few days were consumed with meetings, the successful negotiation of a book contract (stay tuned for details), more meetings, negotiation on a possible project in New Mexico next month, and development of a short promotional video for the new YouTube channel. In my spare time I worked on a project being developed for the Route 66 The Road Ahead Partnership, the organization that has evolved from the Route 66: The Road Initiative steering committee.
Then there were the aforementioned computer issues. For reasons unknown, the scheduled update from Microsoft led to a cascading series of issues that necessitated deletion and re-installation of numerous programs on the primary computer. This of course magnified the need to upgrade a decade old Dell that performs flawlessly as my office computer, which is used solely for various writing projects.
Even with the schedule and problems of this past week, it is impossible to look back over the year and not smile. We are most fortunate indeed.
Sure, the old Dodge, Barney the Wonder Truck, is still on blocks. In addition to the never ending remodel, the homestead now needs a coat of paint and some roof repair. These, however, are minor problems in the grand scheme of things.
As evidenced by our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, we are fortunate to have good friends. My dearest friend and I have traveled extensively this year, and each adventure was enhanced by those friendships. I pay the bills by what is enjoyed most – telling people where to go through presentations and books, lend a helping hand to the Route 66 community, provide a bit of promotional support for a few of my favorite places, and have time for friends.
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Courtesy Sylvia Hoehn, a souvenir from a
very memorable Thanksgiving. |
To each and every one of you that made this a most memorable year, thank you. Here is to a delightful holiday season, and a new year filled with adventure, and adventures shared with good friends.
