The last several years I have done pretty much the same thing for Thanksgiving. The things I have given Thanks for have remained pretty steady. If you’d like to see that list, feel free to visit last years post, Thanksgiving 2023.
I wanted to do something slightly different this year. So the first change was including an Art piece. That visual change helps me change my mindset about the whole post. I wanted to give thanks this year for the little things that I might usually take for granted.
Our world is chockful of little things to be thankful for. I immediately think of grass. I like how grass looks. It’s soothing and calm. Seeing a little patch of green in a sea of pavement or concrete can bring a moment of peace. I am thankful such opportunities exist.
I am thankful for leaves (I suspect the fact that I don’t have to rake them up affects that 😀 ). From their brilliant green in the spring and summer, to their wonderful colors in the fall, to the fact that their death replenishes the nutrients in the ground. We live in a wonderful created world, with each part doing the job it was created to do. I am thankful for that.
I am thankful for such small things as Rockstar energy drinks. I just have to be careful not to be TOO thankful and imbibe more than is safe 😉
Finally, I am thankful for all of my fellow bloggers, from those who write multiple times a day to those who write once a month. My blogging experience wouldn’t be the same if you weren’t there. My world would be a poorer place if you weren’t in it. So thank you for fighting the good fight and pushing out those posts and comments.
Cheers to you all!
UPDATE:
It is now approximately 9am and Mrs B and I have already had our Thanksgiving Dinner, for breakfast. I absolutely love having the day off.
Last week I told you how Mrs B survived a blown tire and that we were also dealing with a dead starter. Turns out it was way more than just a dead starter. Our A/C compressor had seized up and was dead as a doornail. That is run on a serpentine belt, which means everything else running off of that belt needed the compressor to be working. So we had to get a new one installed, along with the new starter.
$1500.
Right before Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Folks, I am not feeling very thankful right now, I really am not. Not even a new journal could make me feel better at the moment. While we have the money, thank God, this is going to impact us for the whole of 2025. This happened on Monday, so I’ve been stewing about it all week. I’m like a stewed prune right now.
And just because, I also caught a bug that had been going around Mrs B’s work place, so I was out of work on Wednesday and Thursday, being very noisily sick.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
This is the next journal I have on tap. Number 24. This is a reproduction of a hand written copy of Orwell’s 1984. The most disturbing quote ever. It is a good reminder however. Every time I’ll write in this I’ll be reminded of just how dangerous blind fallen humanity is.
Man, I just LOVE looking at these journals. They are a joy to write in, but they look good too. I am realizing how important that is to me now. I couldn’t tell you WHY it is important, but I really don’t think I could go back to writing in a plain spiral bound notebook again.
Ahhh, good times. Started looking around for a non-contemporary music service as where we currently attend is getting so loud that we have had to start sitting outside until its done because its so loud. That’s just obnoxious. Besides, contemporary christian music is obnoxious. Period. We did find a church that has a “traditional” service and Mrs B really liked the hymn singing (they also just use an organ for music and ONE lead singer, that’s it) so that aspect was really good. The sermon part, well, it seemed more geared towards unbelievers or very new Christians, which considering that most people who want hymns are older Christians didn’t make a lot of sense to me. All of that is to say that our church attendance in 2025 is going to undergo yet another change, just like it did back in ’17. I hate change 🙁
I was tired and achy all week. I never had a fever, so I don’t think I had a bug, but it was persistent. That made work hard, as doing such a physical job gets very hard when you’re tired at 8am and your knees hurt. It made for the kind of week where I came home, collapsed on the couch, ate whatever was easiest for dinner and was then in bed at 8pm and asleep by 10pm. It also meant that I had to curtail any non-essential activities.
For example, last night was Halloween and our church puts on a Harvest Party for the community. It’s part of a larger community trick or treating time for the kids. The town closes off roads to a large section of the town for about 3-4 hrs and the kids go trick or treating. Our church hands out popcorn, has games for the kids and literal buckets of candy, provides bathroom access and warm drinks and a chair for weary parents and grandparents. I helped out last year on some of the games and probably dealt with close to 200 kids just on that one game. This year, because of the really nice weather, over 800 people were expected to go through. I just couldn’t face dealing with hundreds of people, so I had to stay home. I knew if I went, I’d end collapsing either physically or emotionally, so that just wasn’t an option.
If you didn’t know, I am a words of affirmation kind of guy. When people say nice things to me, or even just send a text or email with some genuine thought (and not just a generic “hey, how’s it going”) put into it, it makes me feel really appreciated. So Wednesday after work I got the mail and there was a hand addressed letter to me and the return address was in the same town. I figured it was someone from church and was really looking forward to reading a nice “Be encouraged, been praying for you” little note, or something like that. I open it up and it’s a mass mailing letter from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I admit, I just about cried with the disappointment.
I realize I’ve made things “sound” bad, but it really wasn’t. It was just a very tough week and one that I’ll be glad to see the back of after tomorrow.
This is the first journal from the 8 Journals I ordered last month. It is a letter from Renoir to Morisot with Renoir’s famous “Bed of Anemones” as the backdrop. I included front, back, fully extended and then one of it open so you can see how flat it lies on its own. I mentioned that in the 8 Journals post so I wanted to show you what I meant. It is practically like having a writing desk included.
Had a situation this week where I thought I was doing the right thing only to find out that someone else thought I was doing the wrong thing, on purpose. It really set me back for a couple of days. I volunteer once a month and after December will not be able to continue it due to various reasons. So I began approaching some of the younger people I know asking them if they had any interest in getting training and beginning to volunteer themselves. I presented the volunteer leader with a list of teenager’s names with a note about each’s seeming interest (from highly interested to not really but said yes just to get rid of me, hahahah). Well, boy howdy did I get raked over the coals by him for that! He replied to my email, leaving out key people who I had initially included so as not to step on anybody’s toes, and impugned my motives and told me that kids weren’t welcome as the program being done right was more important than anything. Sadly, I’ve seen this kind of behavior before and it always ends in a death spiral for whatever program is in question. That just kept me in a state of low level turmoil until Wednesday.
Injections in both my eyes on Wednesday. Amazing how some pain and suffering can wipe away emotional baggage in about an hour. Can’t say I was particularly thankful for that, but I was glad to stop thinking about the volunteer situation. I do not need to get bitter about it.
Today I have some more Endo (endocrinology for my diabetes) appointments. After that, going to try to catch up on some blog posts, as I didn’t write for most of the week because I didn’t feel like it. It still amazes me, after all these years, just how much work a hobby can be 😀
But for some surprisingly GOOD news. We are having Mac-N-Choose for dinner. I am getting the philly steak and cheese mac and cheese. Oh yeah baby!
The (Great) Pumpkin Festival officially starts at 5pm. So we drove down to the local County Store to park at 4:30pm. This was possible because I worked my backside off at work to get out at 3pm. Yeah, I’m just that good.
As is our custom, (and yes, we do have a custom when it comes to the Pumpkin Festival) we first went down to Food Alley. Not every place was open but most were and we took advantage of that to score ourselves some food and some open tables. Trust me, after 5:30pm it is standing room only, everywhere.
Mrs B stopped at the Fried Tempura vendor and got a fried vegetable platter. It was a lot!
It was also incredibly greasy. Just the way fried food should be!
Last year I had seen a vendor selling Elephant Ears, so this year I was curious enough to find out just what that was.
It turns out Elephant Ears are massive amounts of fried dough. HUGE!
Then we wandered around, looking at various vendors selling brightly colored crap.
Or vendors trying to sneakily separate you from your money for other kinds of brightly colored crap.
It was perfect! Even the obnoxious bands playing all over the place. I believe there were 3 this year. One in the center of the Oval, one off to one side and the third down at the beer garden a street over. There was also some “music” up by the Post Office. So no matter where you went, you were assailed by sight and sound. And jostled by people.
Unless you were me. Because I had a staff and people don’t mess with guys in cloaks who carry a staff as tall as they are.
Then the (Great) Pumpkin rose into the sky and the town was safe for another year!
Eat your heart out, Linus
Thus Sir Bookstooge navigated another deadly, people infested adventure and nobody died. That’s how you know it was good.
It has been a year since I last reposted my About page. So for all the new people, enjoy. For all your old followers, Mr Zip says welcome back. He has such sights to show you!
Here are some things to know about me that might make your interactions a tiny bit easier. If you still have questions, you can always email me:
Bookstoog eat proto nmail do tcom
1) I am a pretty devout Christian. Weird personal mix of Baptist and 7th Day Adventist. To over-simplify it, that means I believe in the Bible literally and I go to church on Saturday instead of Sunday. It also means that it influences what I read, how I read and how I review.
2) I am a Man. I cannot state this boldly enough or enough times. Be prepared. Mancakes Ahead!
3) I like Science fiction, Fantasy, Classics [1900’s and earlier] and mysteries. I’ll read other stuff, but not regularly. As I’ve gotten older, my tastes have broadened though, so chances are pretty good you’ll see more than what I listed there..
4) I tend to read 100+ books a year.
5) Of the 5 Love Languages, [quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, or physical touch] my main one is Words of affirmation. Or just words 🙂 Which means that I tend to post and comment quite a bit. I am NOT a once a week poster.
6) To go along with #1, I graduated from a non-accredited Bible school, so I’ve got a working man’s knowledge of how to be a Pastor, just not the actual degree. Or the temperament.
7) I am NOT a people person. People wear me out, even online. Then I say things that later I sometimes regret. Then I need chicken fingers to recover!
Mr Zip loves you as much as he knows you love him.
8) I am happily married to Mrs Bookstooge. For some reason she really loves me. 16 years and it’s still a mystery to me.
9) If you disagree with something in my posts or reviews, feel free to say so; IF you want to actually have a conversation with someone who disagrees with you. Most times I will try to move such conversations to email.
10) I am a land surveyor. I work outdoors year round in New England. The picture below is of me. It typifies why I like being a surveyor.
Technically, this post will be about last week, but since it does lapse into this current week, this is what you get! Most of my pictures from the trip were people heavy, and as the rest of my family feels the same as I do (except my Mom) about putting up pictures online, there probably won’t be very many.
On Wednesday the 11th, Mrs B and I took a leisurely flight down to the Atlanta Georgia airport. My sister and her partner picked us up and they dropped us off at my parents house where we were staying. My brother and sister-in-law were down as well and so that evening everyone went out to a nice eyetalian restaurant called Provinos. Mrs B got a sampler platter of all their fried veggies and cheeses and I went with the chicken and broccoli alfredo with fettuccini. It was gooood!
Thursday was our big “do things” day. Everybody (except my dad, and including my Mom and niece Grizzelda) piled into 2 cars and we struck out for the wilds of Tennessee. Went up to Chattanooga to an aquarium there and spent the morning going through that. It was just the right size for Grizzelda and just the right amount of people for me (ie, not a lot at all). Between me, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk, Grizzelda’s mom and my sister, we managed to keep track of Grizzelda, but it was definitely a group effort. She literally didn’t stop moving the entire time. We would get to a new room and all spread out and she’d just zoom around the room 3-4 times, taking in everything at 30second intervals.
Blue Morpho Butterfly
It was in two buildings, one for fresh water exhibits and one for salt water creatures. By the time we were done the second building I was exhausted. Thankfully, Grizzelda’s mom knows the area (she’s a wedding photographer and goes all over the place) and already had a great restaurant in mind. We made a reservation and I ordered the whiskey and onion smash burger.
I know it doesn’t look big on that plate, but that’s two quarter pound patties and so many onions that I had to scrape off about half of them. It was delicious! And so filling. Afterwards, I went back to the car and took a food fueled coma nap while the others took a walk and looked at tourist’y things. Then we did the two hour drive back to Mom and Dad’s place and collapsed for the evening.
Oh yes, on the way to the aquarium, we stopped at a gas station that Grizzelda’s mom described as the Walmart of Gas Stations. It is called Buc’ees and boy howdy, was her description spot on. We saw signs for the place 75miles away for goodness sake.
Buc’ee the Beaver. In bronze. I got a picture of him with me and Grizzelda for posterity’s sake. She’s going to just love that in about 13 years when I send her a big glossy 8×11 as a birthday present 😀
Friday we all gathered over at my sister’s place and just hung out and played games. It was lowkey and I loved every single second of having zero responsibilities. We all scattered around 2pm and went back to our separate places. My Mom, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk and Grizzelda’s mom all went to a Brave’s baseball game that evening while everyone else went to bed and slept the sleep of the exhausted.
Saturday we once again gathered at my sister’s and had homemade brunch. They have chickens and so we had scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. Then we played games again and chilled until it was time for the Bombunks to leave for the airport so they could go back to the adult world. Once we were back at Mom and Dad’s, we packed up and headed off to bed.
Friday started off at 330am, when we had to wake up. Dad drove us to the Atlanta airport and we had a very uneventful flight home. We were back at our condo by 1pm. Spent the afternoon unpacking, doing laundry and getting used to being home again. That’s a good feeling!
Monday we had taken off just in case there were flight delays or cancellations. Since there weren’t, we had a free day. Mrs B went to visit some historical house with a friend and I sat home and pretended I was a log. Hahahaha!
Bookstooge Revealed!
And then it was back to work for the rest of this week. Sigh….
My memories of 9/11 are specifically tied to the Twin Towers, as I saw them fall on tv. But that was not all that happened that day and I think it is time for me to start remembering that.
Three planes were hijacked that day. In one of them, the brave men and women who were the passengers fought back against the hijackers, causing the plane to crash into the ground, causing no additional harm, unlike what happened to the Twin Towers. They sacrificed themselves so that no others would come to harm. That is the true definition of a Hero. Heroes don’t always get happy endings in real life. Those men and women all died, just like the people in the other two planes. Don’t get me wrong, I am not denigrating the passengers in the other planes. While I would like to think I would have stood up and fought back, I know myself well enough that I am sure I would have frozen up. And things happened FAST.
Today I choose to remember the brave men and women who sacrificed themselves so that no one else had to die. I Will Never Forget!
