"Gratitude is Happiness Doubled by Wonder"

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton

 What's your favorite holiday? 



Some of you might say Christmas right off, but I'm pretty sure I hear others out there picking Thanksgiving. It such a wonderful day of family and food and blessings. No pressure to exchange gifts. Just pies to bake and people to visit. And blessings to count. 

I counted some of mine last week when we had our anniversary celebration. You can see sixteen of my special blessings here - my husband, children and grandchildren. Whenever I start counting my blessings, family is right there at the top. 




Then I have such a beautiful place to live. And the Lord blesses me with fabulous scenic views that I can capture with my camera. 





I'm able to get out and walk and I have a sweet four-legged walking companion in Oscar.  

 I'm thankful for all the everyday blessings of life - blue skies and rain, flowers and trees, hummingbirds and snowbirds, breaks in the traffic when I'm merging onto a busy interstate, a car that starts when I turn the key, a child's hug, a baby's first giggle, a dog's wagging tail - just to name a few. So many little gifts of life to enjoy and appreciate.  

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Thanksgiving is a great time to be conscious of our treasures. Our blessings. It's been a tough few months - losing Mom in July and then in August the diagnosis of breast cancer with surgery and radiation treatments. But even during the harder times, the blessings abounded with friends who prayed for me and encouraged me. 

I can't leave out the blessing of being able to live my dream of writing books. Each story a gift and a blessing. Each reader a blessing too. I thank all of you who read my books or who peek in here at my journal from time to time. I am thankful for each of you. Next summer I'll have a new book out and maybe I'll meet some new reading friends. So may I have a thankful heart as I count my blessings. 

"Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life." ~Robert Louis Stevenson


Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving Day overflowing with blessings.  

What blessings are you especially thankful for right now in your life? 

Words - A Reason for Thanksgiving

Words 

"Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap." ~George Bernard Shaw

Since I let Wednesday slip away without posting last night, I'm writing this early on Thanksgiving morning. So of course, it is about being thankful. I have so many blessings to count, that I could write them down all day and then nobody would get to eat those mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese I need to cook. The turkey is in the oven and I made the cranberry sauce and chess cake last night. Stay tuned for my very simple chess cake recipe - as long as you're not dieting. :)

But last night as I got ready to go to bed I was thinking about what I could have written if I hadn't forgotten it was Wednesday night and the thought came to me that I was thankful for words. I am so very thankful that I have been given, in some small measure at least, a gift for words. I like words. I like to put them together to make a story. I like reading the way other people put them together to make stories. I like hearing people speak those words to tell a story. I like the sound of words when you read a story aloud to a child whether the words are ones in the dictionary or some arrangement of letters that make up nonsensical words for fun. 

A Big Dream

I am so thankful that I have been able to live my childhood dream of being a writer. That was such a big dream for a little girl growing up on a tobacco farm who had never even met anyone who was a writer. It was such a big dream that even after I had several books published I had a hard time claiming the title of writer out loud. It was as if I thought it might vanish if I became too sure of it. Last Sunday at church we were being thankful for our beautiful fellowship hall that seemed an impossible dream for our little church when we first thought about building it. But now it's built and paid for and a blessing to our church. There's no dream too big for our Lord. 

So that's how it was with that little farm girl who did become a writer with the help of the Lord. Now all these many years of writing later, I can say, without hesitation, I am a writer. I have been blessed by the characters who have come to life in my imagination. And I have been blessed by the readers who have also let my characters come to life in their imaginations. Words are a writer's tool. And I am thankful for those tools. 

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for." ~Ray Bradbury

A Simple Recipe Everybody Likes

Now here's that Chess Cake recipe:


1 C butter or margarine
2 C brown sugar, packed
1 C granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 C self-rising flour
1 C chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and flour and then the nuts. Bake in a 13 x 9 inch dish at 350 degrees until lightly brown - approximately 35 minutes. Slice into squares and enjoy. 

Now to Announce the Winner

Melanie Backus is the winner of Jan Watson's autographed novels, Skip Rock Shallows and Tattler's Branch. I'll be in touch, Melanie. Thanks to all of you who commented on Jan's post and on the ones since. A special thanks to those of you who have offered encouraging words and shared your own journeys down the hard path of caring for a loved one with dementia. I'm thankful for each of you. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Blessings by the Bushel





 

The unthankful heart …discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds iron, so it will find in every hour, some heavenly blessings!  ~ Henry Ward Beecher

I have so many blessings to count on Thanksgiving Day that it would take me a while if I tried to even name only the biggest blessings. And how can you give a size to blessings. All blessings are good and make our life better. Sometimes at our church we talk about the everyday blessings, and isn’t it great that we can count those blessings everyday. A couple of my everyday blessings in my bushel of blessings are sunshine and a beautiful place to live. It’s a blessing that I can walk on my farm and take pictures to remember the beauty of the day and to share with my friends here on the net. My Facebook friends like it when I post something I spot on my walks. I’ve put out photos of snakes and buzzards, flowers and trees, frogs and cows, mushrooms and rocks. I guess I could call all of them everyday blessings.  

Of course, a beautiful family is a blessing I’m glad to have in my bushel of blessings and especially the grandkids in the family. I’m thankful for children who can run and play. I’m thankful my great-niece is finished with her cancer treatments and can be with the other children to have a good time. I’m thankful for curious children who like to check out lady bugs and worms.

I’m thankful I can write stories that some of you like to read. I’ve always wanted to tell stories and I feel blessed that I’ve been able to follow that dream for all these years.

I’m thankful for my mother even though things are hard right now for her and for us. But so many great years we’ve had together. Family is such a great blessing. My church family and friends too.  And you. I’m thankful that you take the time to share my journal here. You are in my bushel of blessings.

So many great blessings. I’ll be counting for weeks, and I can hope for good health and good sense, too.

Good health and good sense are two of life’s greatest blessings. ~Publilius Syrus

Wishing you both in this Thanksgiving season. As always, thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear what you have in your bushel of blessings.

 



Counting My Blessings on Thanksgiving!

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. ~O. Henry

Thanksgiving is a great time to pause and think about our blessings. Family is certainly a blessing that has me counting. And grandkids are easy to name in that number. One through nine for us - all beautiful children who can make this grandmother smile. But I'm also thankful for the rest of my family too. My husband, my children and their spouses, my mother and my dad - though he's been gone over 20 years - my sisters, my in-laws and all the others in my extended family. That's one of the good things about living in the same place forever and having family that has done the same. So many great connections and family who are not only related by blood but by love and common experiences. 

My country church

I'm thankful for my church family and for a pastor who is able to open up the Bible and reveal its lessons and truths to me. I'm thankful for the Lord and the many times He has blessed me and forgiven me. I'm thankful for all the everyday blessings of life - blue skies and rain, flowers and trees, hummingbirds and snowbirds, breaks in the traffic when I'm merging onto a busy interstate, a car that starts when I turn the key, a child's smile, a baby's first giggle, a dog's wagging tail - just to name a few. So many little gifts of life to enjoy and appreciate. 

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

Coming February 2012

So this Thanksgiving Day I want to be conscious of my treasures. I can't leave out the blessing of being able to live my dream of writing books and seeing them published for readers to share my stories. Each book a blessing. Each reader a blessing too. I thank all of you who have read my books or who peek in here at my journal from time to time. I am thankful for each of you. And for a new book to come in the new year and for the unknown blessings it may bring me in the months to come.


Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. ~Native American Saying

So may you have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving Day with many unknown blessings headed your way. As always, thanks for reading. Oh, and for those of you who didn't know the way I didn't know, saleratus means baking soda. A saleratus biscuit is a soda biscuit - the kind my mother used to make every day for breakfast.  

A Gratitude Attitude

"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." (William Arthur Ward)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I definitely don't want to have a present of gratitude all wrapped up in my thoughts and not present it to those who have blessed me. You, my readers, are a blessing to me - those of you who read my "whatever comes to mind" thoughts in this on-line journal and also those of you who read my stories. Thank you so much.
~~
I have so many blessings to count including the two books pictured here that will be released next year. The colors of the covers seem to have a complimentary scheme. Maybe that's so they'll look good on the store shelf next to each other. I can only hope. Angel Sister will release first in February and then The Blessed will come out in July next year. I'm being doubly blessed by that in 2011.
~~
But of course, there are many other reasons for gratitude in my life. A loving husband, three wonderful children and the three people they brought into our family and our hearts when they married. My beautiful, brilliant, talented grandchildren. (You get the idea - I am a grandmother after all. LOL) But I'm most grateful those grandchildren are healthy and happy with good parents. I'm thankful for my own health and that I can go hiking with my dogs and still climb up and down the hills on my farm. I'm thankful for two sisters who are my best friends and for my loving and giving mother. Mom's struggling now. Her memory is fading and without memory life gets very difficult, but she has been a blessing to me and so many people in her lifetime. I'm thankful for the sisters and brothers I gained when I married Darrell. I'm so blessed to be part of the Gabhart family and to have the memories we share of times with his parents. I'm blessed by my pastor and my church family and grateful to the Lord for the many showers of blessings over the years.
~~
I could name blessings until the cows came home. (Had to stick something country in here.) But I won't bore you with more. But I'd love to hear the blessings you're counting this weekend. Hearing from you is another blessing of my day. Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
~~
"The unthankful heart...discovers no mercies. But let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings." Henry Ward Beecher

Happy Thanksgiving!

--Here's one of my precious reasons for thanksgiving. I've got almost as many little grandbaby blessings to count as I do fingers. Nine beautiful blessings.

--I knew I wanted to get married and have children when I was fourteen. I remember thinking about what I wanted to do in life one morning on the school bus and of course, I knew I wanted to write. No, I think I knew I would write. Whether successfully remained to be seen, but I knew I would write. But I was also very sure I wanted a family. I wanted to have children and then when those children married, I hoped for grandchildren.

-And boy, were my hopes realized! I know a lot of grandmothers and grandfathers and most all of them consider those precious grandkids a good enough reason to accept adding a few years on and seeing those gray hairs and feeling those aches and pains. Especially after a bout of grandbaby sitting. You've heard the saying you're only as old as you feel. Well, while the grandkids are there, us grandmoms feel young enough to run and chase and play, but when they go home then the years start tapping us on the shoulder and reminding us we're not twenty something anymore.

--All the kids are supposed to be here on Friday for our round of Thanksgiving. They haven't all been here at the same time since last Christmas. That's the problem with being spread out over several states. So I'll be cooking and getting ready tomorrow while most people are sitting down to enjoy what they've been cooking and getting ready today. I have done a few things. The turkey is thawing in the fridge. I wrote out my menu. I went to the grocery - again.

--Let me give you some advice. Don't go to the grocery on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Trust me, everybody else and his Uncle Joe and Aunt Sally are already there and they're not leaving much room for you. Or me. Luckily we didn't have any major shopping cart jams in the cake mix aisle. At least not while I was there. I did knock over a pretty display stack of boxes of chocolate covered cherries. I think they were trying to jump in my cart to come home with me. But I managed to stack them up like a two year old playing with blocks and make my escape. At least it wasn't bottles of turkey gravy. Now all I've got to do is turn those groceries into the traditional Thanksgiving dishes. I'm happy with some old timey dressing and cranberry sauce. Along with a piece of pecan pie or maybe cherry pie. And rolls. You got to have rolls. And sweet potatoes. And corn pudding. And .... Oh well, you get the idea. Maybe I should lock the scales in a closet somewhere and throw away the key until after Christmas.

--Christmas - I'm trying not to panic when I hear that word. Christmas is a season to be enjoyed. It's a time to rejoice and see friends. So what if there are a zillion things to do to get ready and so what if a certain somebody has to be ready the week before Christmas. But I don't like to do Christmas - not even Christmas-got-to-get-everything-done panic until after Thanksgiving. Give me a couple of days. Then we'll see what can be accomplished in panic mode.

--One bit of writing news. I got the Baker Books summer catalogue today. The Seeker was featured on a two page spread and on the back cover. Hope it looks good enough that bookstore people will want to put it on their shelves. And readers will want to take it home. That is one thing I love to do at Christmas. I love shopping for books for everybody on my list. I could spend all my shopping time in bookstores and be very happy.

--Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with blessings smiling at you from all around the table. Enjoy.

Reasons for Thanksgiving

This is one of my books you might win if you want your name to be in the hat for my Thanksgiving giveaway. Just leave a comment with a way to get in touch with you in case you win or send me an e-mail from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/. As those of you who keep up with this blog know, I'm giving away an autographed copy of one of my books, The Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope, Summer of Joy, Angels at the Crossroads, The Outsider or The Believer along with a hardback copy of Less Than Dead by Tim Downs. It's my way of being thankful for you, my reading friends.

We had our Thanksgiving dinner at church tonight. This morning we had a different kind of service where at the end of the sermon Br. Fred encouraged us to speak up and talk about the things for which we were especially thankful. Well, of course I was one of the ones not too shy to talk about my reasons for thanksgiving. I was like one of my church sisters who wanted to list her blessings. "How much time do I have?" she asked.

She was right. If we named all our reasons to be thankful, we'd still be there talking. I am so blessed. As many of you surely are as well. I live in a beautiful country. I have a wonderful family with a fine husband, loving children and the best in the world grandbabies. Every grandma is entitled to think the same about her grandchildren. And should. I have a great mom and sisters and sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law who I also count as friends. I have a good church family and a preacher who has helped me store Bible truths and stories in my heart. On top of all that I've been able to do what I have wanted to do since I was ten and that is to make up stories and write them down. While I would do that, and have done that, whether anybody read them or not, it's wonderful that the Lord has blessed me with some reading friends who do want to read those stories.

And that's just a quick telling of some main blessings. If you get down into the everyday varieties of blessings, I can keep on going. Dogs and birds. Computers and hot tea. Books to read. Glasses that help me keep seeing the words in those books. Walking paths and trees. Smiles and little kids' giggles. The good feel of sunshine on my face. Blackberries on the vine. And on and on. Little things and big things. My church family was glad I edited my list and kept it short.

My church friend had even more dramatic reasons for thankfulness. She's had a hard year, faced cancer treatments several times and wasn't sure a few times whether the treatments would work. But she never turned away from her faith in the Lord to bring her through. We're glad she's walking her faith journey in our little family of God.

I hope you have many reasons for thanksgiving this week as you gather with your friends and family to count your blessings and enjoy a bountiful meal.

A Chair in the Sun

We're having a sunny Sunday today and that's very welcome after last week when winter came to visit. We even had snow on the ground one night. It's still chilly, but the sun feels fantastic. As humans, I think we're wired to need the sunshine. I know we need the rain and maybe if it was sunny all the time, we'd miss the gray skies. Maybe. But sunshine puts a spring in our step and a smile on our faces. It makes some of us want to get outside and clean something while others want to go fishing. Me - well, in spite of being a dog person, I get to thinking sort of like a cat when I see a chair beside a sunny window. I immediately want to curl up in that warm spot with a good book and spend an hour or so reading before the sun shifts to another window.

Not that I ever have the time to actually do that. I need to learn to be a better manager of my time. But with Christmas weeks away, I know every minute will be scheduled and I'll be rushing to get everything done the way I always do this time of the year. Plus I went to the library Friday and got a whole stack of history books to help me figure out what was happening in the time period I've picked for my next Shaker book. So maybe I should be curling up in that chair with a history book, but if the history wasn't riveting, I'd probably just doze off in that warm sunshine. Guess I'll just keep typing here instead.


Some fun news. My new Shaker book The Believer is out on Amazon.com and other internet sites for pre-sale. Not that I think anyone will be buying it this soon, but if you're interested you can go out there and check out the cover and some info on the story. I'll be posting the cover on my website sometime soon, but I haven't yet. I do like the cover with the Shaker buildings in the background and the stormy sky. I especially like the guy. He's a good Ethan and Ethan is the Believer in the story. The Outsider was released August 1 this year and looks as if The Believer will follow suit in 2009. By then I should have my next and perhaps last Shaker book finished and off to the publishers. I will if I meet my deadline. So I'd better get at those history books.


We had a great day at Goshen today. Br. Fred preached on Psalm 107 "O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good." He told us about a word in that first verse. A Hebrew word 'hesedth' that is translated in many Bibles as 'lovingkindness.' He says there isn't any good way to translate it word for word into our language but that the closest you might come is a combination of all the good greeting words in the world wrapped together. All the blessings and goodwill anybody might want to wish to you and it's all coming from the Lord. Hesedth. May you be wrapped in that loving kindness this week as you pause in your busy schedules to seek out that spot in the sunshine of the Lord's love to warm your spirit and count your blessings.

You are one of the blessings I will be counting this week. Thanks for reading.

"Are You Famous?"

The Kentucky Book Fair was yesterday. It's a great event because a lot of readers show up to talk to the many writers (over 120 authors) and buy books. People do their Christmas shopping and come in with lists they have written after searching through the Book Fair catalogue. My book actually made some of those lists and I'm grateful for every reader who came by to say hello. Some had already read my books. Some were trying my books for the first time. I had fun talking to all of them, old friends and new. And the amazing thing is that I don't think I forgot any names that I was supposed to remember. A lot of people signed up for my drawing for a free copy of The Scent of Lilacs, and the winner was Ruth. I'll get her book in the mail the first of the week.

I did have one interesting conversation. A young man maybe twenty, maybe a little older or younger, came up to me and asked, "Are you famous?" Of course I said, "Hardly." I certainly don't feel anything close to famous as I think about famous. Who is famous? Movie stars. Athletes. Coaches - the line for Rick Pitino's signature on his book was pretty long. Preachers can be famous. And some bestselling authors might surely make the list. I suppose the sole criteria of fame is being well known in a general, all-encompassing way. A person might be well known in his or her home town and not be known in the town down the road. So would he or she still be famous? You know what? I think that's a question that has to be answered by everybody else and not by yourself. If you're famous, you might not know it, but everybody else would.

Maybe the better question is "Do you want to be famous?" I've never worried much about acquiring fame, but I would like my books to be widely read. Most all writers do. That's why we work so hard getting our words published and out in front of readers. It's what we do.

Anyway I enjoyed talking to readers and other writers. I sat next to Janna McMahan whose book Coming Home is getting great reviews. She sold out her books before the day was over and got the reward of leaving early. I didn't sell out, but I did have a lot of great people carry one or more of my books home with them. If some of those books end up under Christmas trees, then I will certainly feel honored.

It was one young woman's birthday and her husband had surprised her with the gift of one of my books and a trip to the Book Fair. She was so excited and having so much fun. Her husband surely got bonus points for being so thoughtful and knowing what would please her. And he wasn't the only thoughtful hubby. Another lady told me her husband had taken her out to breakfast and then suggested going to the Book Fair. She was having fun too. So take note. Maybe Book Fairs are the new romantic locations. At least for all those people who love books the way I do.

My writing friends, Virginia Smith and Jan Watson, were a few seats down the row from me with their piles of books. Both also had many people coming to take their books home with them. Ginny has a new title from Love Inspired, A Taste of Murder, and Jan had her popular Troublesome Creek series about her character, Copper there. Both have more new books coming out next year. Ginny and Jan are fun people to know and between us we must have smiled and talked to every person in Frankfort yesterday. Our smiling muscles got a work out.

And I still had plenty to smile about again this afternoon as our church gathered for our annual Thanksgiving dinner. When I was driving back to church this evening, I was thinking about my special reasons for thanksgiving. When we first started having our Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago in the basement of our church, we would stand in a circle and hold hands while we each named a special blessing. One of our blessings now is that our church has a beautiful new fellowship hall and we don't have to have our dinners in the too small church basement anymore. Another is that we had too many people come tonight to let everyone speak a blessing one by one. The dressing and gravy would have gotten cold.

Even so, I always think about blessings of the year when we gather for the dinner. I have so many to count. My family. New twin grandbabies and another grandbaby (the other son and his wife) on the way. My church family. Friends. My Lord. A great place to live. A farm where I can walk with my dog. More books than I have time to read. And also many writing blessings. Two new books in 2008, Summer of Joy and The Outsider, and one, The Believer, scheduled for 2009. New readers. Old readers. Any and all readers! People who say they read my blog. I guess I could go on and on. I hope and pray that you can too.

And I'm still going to do that "too busy" blog sometime. When I have time.