How was your thanksgiving? It was a day of Gratitude for me!

natly15
natly15 Member Posts: 1,941
edited March 2014 in Breast Cancer #1
Thanksgiving was wonderful and very different this year. This is the first time in our 36 years of marriage that my husband and I had Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant. We were joined by 2 of our neighbors. It was such a relief not to have to prepare dinner. The food was very good, (not as good as home cooked) but good, we ate our fill and had no desire for an evening snack. About 2 hours prior to our reservation, that crummy old nausea hit me, I took compazine, and my husband convinced me that I would be fine. He was right.

As my day progressed, I read an article in the newspaper which inspired me to begin a gratitude journal. My first entry was written today. "Dear Journal I'm grateful that I was able to eat my dinner today without issue".

My plan is to make an entry each morning before I begin my day. When challenges arise during my day, I will try to hold on to that gratitude entry.

Sending hugs and best wishes to all my sisters in pink. Hope your day was as good as mine.

Comments

  • survivorbc09
    survivorbc09 Member Posts: 4,374 Member
    So happy that you had such a
    So happy that you had such a wonderful day Natly! You deserve it!
  • Marlene_K
    Marlene_K Member Posts: 508
    Sounds wonderful, Nat!
    I truly believe if more people counted their blessings and not their misfortunes, we would truly live in a much better world. It's a very positive idea that you have... I love it!

    I, too, had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving. It was very quiet; just me and my kids, but I was extremely grateful that I was able to make it happen. My kids look very forward to my cooking and I was so afraid that I would get too tired, as it's an entire day of cooking, but it went really great and my 'princess' daughter actually jumped in and helped with the clean up! At dinner, we usually go around and everyone says something they are thankful for. My eldest son (18 next month) jumped up and said that "I think I can speak for all of us and say how thankful we all are that mom is beating this thing and doing so well. We are very thankful we can eat her great Thanksgiving dinner"! It made me tear up! I am one EXTREMELY lucky mom and I had one very memorable and very Happy Thanksgiving!

    I sure hope that all of our sisters in pink had a very special day!
  • mizcaldwell
    mizcaldwell Member Posts: 143
    My day was great, too! My
    My day was great, too! My sister invited us for dinner - so I didn't have to do all the cooking this year - just a few dishes (which pooped me out as much as it usually does to do the whole thing!). I buzzed my hair last night - so a friend made me some cool head coverings this morning - so I didn't feel so strange going out without hair! And my family got a kick out of the mohawk pictures we took during the shaving! All in all, it was a great day to be with family and friends - I am very blessed, too!

    Happy Friday to all tomorrow!

    Lori
  • Whoknowz
    Whoknowz Member Posts: 82
    What a joyous day
    No nausea and everything tasted great! Two wonderful surprises that I am extremely grateful for. I've had no appetite and almost everything I like has tasted odd. I was able to enjoy this quiet day of giving thanks as my son and I cooked the dinner together. The gratitude journal sounds like a good idea. I dont't keep a journal but I do focus on all that I'm grateful for as I awake each morning and I think it makes a big difference in the way I approach my day. I started that a couple of years ago and my ability to deal with challenges during the day has definitely improved.

    I hope everyone had a great day of fun and fellowship so we are all refreshed and strengthened to continue to win this battle.
  • jnl
    jnl Member Posts: 3,869 Member
    Whoknowz said:

    What a joyous day
    No nausea and everything tasted great! Two wonderful surprises that I am extremely grateful for. I've had no appetite and almost everything I like has tasted odd. I was able to enjoy this quiet day of giving thanks as my son and I cooked the dinner together. The gratitude journal sounds like a good idea. I dont't keep a journal but I do focus on all that I'm grateful for as I awake each morning and I think it makes a big difference in the way I approach my day. I started that a couple of years ago and my ability to deal with challenges during the day has definitely improved.

    I hope everyone had a great day of fun and fellowship so we are all refreshed and strengthened to continue to win this battle.

    Yea Natly! I am so glad
    Yea Natly! I am so glad that you had a great thanksgiving! I also had a wonderful day with my husband and our family. So much to be thankful for!

    Leeza
  • natly15
    natly15 Member Posts: 1,941

    So happy that you had such a
    So happy that you had such a wonderful day Natly! You deserve it!

    thank you sisters in pink.
    thank you sisters in pink. we all deserved a wonderful thanksgiving. I'm convinced we are all very strong women on these bords. I recently shared some of your anonymous stories with a friend and she was very impressed by the warriors on this website. I am too!!
  • DianeBC
    DianeBC Member Posts: 3,881 Member
    natly15 said:

    thank you sisters in pink.
    thank you sisters in pink. we all deserved a wonderful thanksgiving. I'm convinced we are all very strong women on these bords. I recently shared some of your anonymous stories with a friend and she was very impressed by the warriors on this website. I am too!!

    Yes, Natly, we all did
    Yes, Natly, we all did deserve a great Thanksgiving and I hope everyone had one. Thanks for sharing yours!

    Diane
  • KathiM
    KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
    The ghost of Thanksgiving yet to come.....
    We are having the family dinner today, Friday. The 21 pound bird (!) is ready to go, and the kids are all looking forward to it...sigh...sign of the times...we both have ex-s, so we have to share the kids...lol...

    Hugs to all!
    Kathi
  • lynn1950
    lynn1950 Member Posts: 2,570
    Thank you and bless your
    Thank you and bless your beautiful heart, natly,. This is the first post I read today and what you wrote (and all the responses to it) are so positive...a great way to start my day. Your gratitude journal is an excellent idea; I, too, have so much to be grateful for.

    Our house was overflowing with dinner and dessert guests yesterday and the mixed aroma of turkey, ham, fresh bread, and laughter. I did have some internal sober moments praying for justice, peace, and plenty for everyone all around the world, being thankful for how blessed my family and friends truly are.
  • Marcia527
    Marcia527 Member Posts: 2,729
    Our Thanksgiving was
    Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. The turkey wasn't ready at lunch so we ate pie. Turkey was ready about 3 and we ate dinner then. My son and husband did all the cooking and clean up so I didn't have to do anything! Just because they wanted to. I feel great. 6 years out from diagnosis. We just had dinner with our two sons so we didn't need to clean the house either. Just as it should be. After dinner we watched Ernest Saves Christmas. A perfect day.
  • Sunrae
    Sunrae Member Posts: 808
    Marcia527 said:

    Our Thanksgiving was
    Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. The turkey wasn't ready at lunch so we ate pie. Turkey was ready about 3 and we ate dinner then. My son and husband did all the cooking and clean up so I didn't have to do anything! Just because they wanted to. I feel great. 6 years out from diagnosis. We just had dinner with our two sons so we didn't need to clean the house either. Just as it should be. After dinner we watched Ernest Saves Christmas. A perfect day.

    Glad to see everyone had a
    Glad to see everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My husband and I prepared the traditional turkey with t r i m m i n g s, my youngest son brought cornbread/sage dressing, my other son/family brought pumpkin pies. I made pecan pies and we had cream pies. There were 9 of us inc. our 1 yr old grandson. We opened up our time machine box we had filled and wrapped on Dec. 31, 1999. It wasn't quite 10 years but close enough. We spent the afternoon looking at all the dated treasures, photos, newspaper/magazines, etc. we had placed in the box. We also read the letters we had all written 10 years ago about our family and how we wished the future would be in the year 2010. My granddaughters were only 7 and 8 then, so their letters were special. They hoped to be graduating from high school, happy, healthy and wealthy. Great fun! Natly, the gratitude journal is a great idea, we all have much to be thankful for every day.
  • roseann4
    roseann4 Member Posts: 992 Member
    Sunrae said:

    Glad to see everyone had a
    Glad to see everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My husband and I prepared the traditional turkey with t r i m m i n g s, my youngest son brought cornbread/sage dressing, my other son/family brought pumpkin pies. I made pecan pies and we had cream pies. There were 9 of us inc. our 1 yr old grandson. We opened up our time machine box we had filled and wrapped on Dec. 31, 1999. It wasn't quite 10 years but close enough. We spent the afternoon looking at all the dated treasures, photos, newspaper/magazines, etc. we had placed in the box. We also read the letters we had all written 10 years ago about our family and how we wished the future would be in the year 2010. My granddaughters were only 7 and 8 then, so their letters were special. They hoped to be graduating from high school, happy, healthy and wealthy. Great fun! Natly, the gratitude journal is a great idea, we all have much to be thankful for every day.

    Marlene, your son statement made me cry.
    Marlene,

    You are blessed to have such wonderful children. It is easy to forget as we go through our struggle that are children are dealing with it too. You are obviously setting a great example of courage for them and that will follow them throughtout their lives. There is a man in my support group who is there for his father-in-law who has lung cancer. He told the story of his mom who had BC when he was in high school. She had a terrible prognosis but continued to live her life with courage and a positive outlook. By the way, she did not die of cancer.

    God bless you and your children.

    Roseann
  • fauxma
    fauxma Member Posts: 3,577 Member
    roseann4 said:

    Marlene, your son statement made me cry.
    Marlene,

    You are blessed to have such wonderful children. It is easy to forget as we go through our struggle that are children are dealing with it too. You are obviously setting a great example of courage for them and that will follow them throughtout their lives. There is a man in my support group who is there for his father-in-law who has lung cancer. He told the story of his mom who had BC when he was in high school. She had a terrible prognosis but continued to live her life with courage and a positive outlook. By the way, she did not die of cancer.

    God bless you and your children.

    Roseann

    Not only was my Thanksgiving
    Not only was my Thanksgiving truly a great one but we went back down to Denise's today. Her in-laws bought them a big old tree and I took down all my ornaments. Denise went through the 5 huge boxes and picked out all her childhood favorites and JJ got so excited when he saw little cars and trucks and the carousel animals. The carousel animals are reproductions of carousel animals from all the famous carvers. One is a hippocathamus (part horse and part fish). He picked it up and said this one is all wrong. I tried to explain what it was but he is sure that the carver was a little off. He's not into mythology yet. Denise had all her beautiful Raku (not sure of the spelling) ornaments that her mother in law has been buying her each year. They have only had a small table top tree so this is the first year she has had them up. The tree was beautiful and she used all of my other decorations throughout the house. It was so wonderful. I really got teary eyed at how lovely it all was. It was a passing of treasures. I have a little hallmark tree and minature ornaments that I will use in the future. And watching JJ and Baby Jo's faces and Jo grabbing for all the low hanging ornaments, it took me back in time. I will never forget this Thanksgiving. But the funniest thing was after we did all the decorating, Grandma Chris said everything is done, JJ said No, Grandma, we still have to wait for Santa and our presents, Is he coming tomorrow? It is going to be a long 28 days at their house. For me, I found my Christmas again.
    Stef
  • Marlene_K
    Marlene_K Member Posts: 508
    roseann4 said:

    Marlene, your son statement made me cry.
    Marlene,

    You are blessed to have such wonderful children. It is easy to forget as we go through our struggle that are children are dealing with it too. You are obviously setting a great example of courage for them and that will follow them throughtout their lives. There is a man in my support group who is there for his father-in-law who has lung cancer. He told the story of his mom who had BC when he was in high school. She had a terrible prognosis but continued to live her life with courage and a positive outlook. By the way, she did not die of cancer.

    God bless you and your children.

    Roseann

    Roseann
    Funny but your reply made me cry! I've always been very emotional and major sentimental but it seems it's even worse since all this began. I cry at the drop of a hat, but mostly happy tears. I have always seen the good in things and cry when other people get great things out of life. I was just saying that my favorite show is "Extreme Makeover" because it's just awesome to see people give so much in their lives and watch them finally get a reward. I was truly touched to read that you got so much from what my son said. It really meant the world to me and I continued to cry happy tears when my head hit the pillow. It was extremely rewarding and I'm so touched that you AND Natly (as she wrote me privately) got the same message I did!

    Thank you SOOO much! Mar