Thanksgiving Thursday Thanksgiving

With best of intentions I flubbed up again.  I was going to do a Thanksgiving Thursday on each of the Thursdays in November but this is my first entry and as you can see it isn't the first Thursday in November but I at least got one in this year.  You may have seen my attempt to do a Thanksgiving Thursday each and every Thursday on the blog or Facebook or anywhere just to get in the habit of being grateful for the many blessing I have received through my lifetime and to keep myself mindful of the fact that these gifts to be thankful for are not a fluke, not a rarity and not a mistake.  They are truly a gift from God who has blessed me with the people in my life and the experiences I have been able to enjoy.  He has blessed me with wisdom and knowledge from sages past and present if I would but listen.  He has blessed me with opportunities to enrich my life and those around me.  He has blessed me with opportunity to be an instrument in his hands to bless others.

I don't mean to be ungrateful for these gifts and many others.  Its just that sometimes I get forgetful.  The longer the period of forgetfulness the harder life seems to become.  I am one that needs to remember and needs to be ever mindful of the blessings that surround me.

I have heard of others saying that they start the day with gratitude by thinking of three things they are grateful for and then ending the day by review and finding at least three more.  You can see by the number of entries I have made that list of good habits is still a work in progress.  So I will not commit to one a day entries or even every Thursday in November because chances are good that I will forget...again.

But I did remember today...and that's a good thing.

Thank you.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

#thanksgivingthursday 17 November 2016

I am thankful that music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  Music has been with me to lift my spirits up, inspire me, pace my workouts, and console me when I'm blue.  Music has been very personal and sometimes private but at other times it has been something that is shared and celebrated with friends and a couple of thousand other fans.

I am glad that I have had a diverse taste in music that reaches across a pretty wide spectrum of genres and yet there are some types that I just don't care for in the least.  I admit that I can be a bit of a music snob but I am not nearly as much of a critic as I was in my youth.  I think we all have a little bit of music snobbery in us but that is just part of who we are.

There are many times when I wished I had done more with music directly...and I may still.  Never be too old for anything.

I have been fortunate to have seen many wonderful musicians play live and in person and that is amazing to me when I reflect back on all the many groups I have seen.  It is one thing to see an orchestra perform wonderfully the works of a renowned dead composer, but then to take it too the next level and get to see the composers perform their own works of mastery the way they wish them to be known is really special.

And tonight will be one of those nights and my excitement mounts.  A few of my family and I are going to enjoy an evening of music.  And even though the concert starts just before my bed time and even though my ears have been a little plugged for three days from fighting a cold, and the change in the weather is making my joints ache just a little more than normal, I AM EXCITED.

This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.

A new start...#thanksgivingthursday

I know Thanksgiving happens to fall on a Thursday this year but I think it is a coincidence as I had a great idea, especially what with all that is going on all around us. I am going to start my own #thanksgivingthursday and you can join in if you'd like. Every Thursday I will try to make an entry publicly, on my blog or facebook or on a sticky note, as a show of gratitude for something/anything I am thankful for. It can be big or small. It just needs to be something meaningful to me, meant for me, and without consideration of what others might think. (Insert your name in place of 'me' if you wish to try this yourself.)

So to kick things off, I must start with one of, if not the most important things in my life that I am grateful for and that is my wonderful wife. It took me a long time to find her and the powers of heaven to bring it all together but I am so glad it happened. She is the one that adds meaning to life, she is my love.

See you next Thursday.  This is Ed Nef with a view from the Farrwest.