As I sit and type my Thanksgiving blog I think of all of the many things I am thankful for.  They are far too many to even list and most of them are people.

I am most thankful for my daughters, who I am very proud of.  Alysse is a hairstylist who is a greatly admired and sought after talent for weddings and photo shoots.  Kaitlyn is on the home stretch to finish her degree in Retail Management, studying to be a buyer, and works at Holt Renfrew—very prestigious!  She has already been contacted through LinkedIn to be interviewed for Tiffany’s!

I am very thankful for Cavan, who loves me and helps me especially with the day to day things that my MS no longer allows me to do.  Lately he has had to put up with a lot of crankiness, as I seem to be doing the job of three and a half people at work and a lot of tasks have to fall through the cracks just to get the important stuff done!

I am also very thankful to, and for, my parents; my mother who I still miss every day and my father, who at 85 still can’t stay still and will pop out to Las Vegas, or wherever on a whim.  I am thankful, for my siblings, their spouses and children, all who enrich our lives.

I am also thankful for all of Cavan’s family, who enrich our lives.

Then, of course there is my dear friend Viv and my co-workers and colleagues, my bosses, and their bosses and so on.

I am also particularly thankful that I am still able to be upright, even after living with MS for over twenty years.

I can’t forget my cats, my house, our home, my car that still runs and the lovely little town of Cobourg where I live.

Of course, I recognize that this is really truly only the tip of the iceberg for what I am thankful for.  I am very blessed that God has allowed so much in my life!

I’m not talking about the baseball team, I mean actual blue jays!

Before I actually moved into my house about two years ago, I had this film installed on main floor windows at the back of my house, which faces east. 

What, might you ask, does that have to do with blue jays?  Well, I knew that during daylight hours, from the outside, the windows are like mirrors.  That gave me the great idea to start feeding the birds.  This became great entertainment for my cats, of course, because I have sliding doors and I could put peanuts right outside the door and the blue jays would come.  With the sliding door acting like a mirror to them, they had no idea the entertainment they were providing to my furry friends.

My house is built into a bit of a hill, so the main floor of my house is actually the second floor from the back.  What I discovered, was that wherever the birds go, they seem to leave behind their poop.  Not nice!  So, I stopped feeding them and the rain looked after cleaning up the mess.

I missed the jays, so this year, I had the film put on the downstairs windows and I put peanuts outside the downstairs sliding door, leading to the patio to see if they would visit there and lo and behold, within ten minutes of the peanuts hitting the concrete, there they were!  The jays were back, as were my cats.

I actually started it this week because my daughter is coming next weekend and bringing her cat, who will love it.  She lives in the city and only has a Juliette balcony, so little Kanye hasn’t see a blue jay.  This will be so much fun!

It’s a win/win situation.  The blue jays get fed and the felines get entertained and boy are the jays aggressive!  They fly at each other and fight over the peanuts.  They even keep the ravens away.  I quite enjoy the ‘show’ myself.

So, this morning as I was looking for a blog topic, I turned to one of my cats and said, ‘So, any ideas for a blog topic?’  Just so you know, I was not expecting a response!  But then I thought that I have never written about cats!  How strange since I have owned several over my lifetime.

The first cat I owned was a female ginger tabby, that I picked up at the Humane Society and was a gift from a friend of mine.  I named her Asreal, like the cat on the Smurfs, but with an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’ in her name.

I realized early on that she needed a fellow feline, so although my brother who was living with me at the time was against it, I went out and got another one. The only ginger tabby left was a little male, so he became my latest housemate.  Since at the time, ‘The Great Gatsby’ was my brothers favorite book, our male feline was named Gatzby.  Again a switcheroo of ‘s’ and ‘z’ in the name.

Those two lived through my getting married and having kids and getting divorced.  So, my kids grew up with cats.  Asreal and Gatzby were with me for five years before I had kids.

We lost poor Gatzby when he was about 13 years old.  I swear he had a stroke and died in my arms overnight.  I claimed I would never have any new cats because he broke my heart when he died, but of course, one Halloween, we saw this sweet black cat at a pet store and so Jett was added to our family.

We lost Asreal at the reasonably old age of 17, which is not too bad for an outside cat, but before she was even gone, we picked up Squeaks at the Humane Society.  She’s a very pretty calico.

So, these last two cats are indoor cats because I got tired of the fleas and injuries the first two would get outside.  They are great company for me, although my current life partner doesn’t much like cats.  Too bad!  They aren’t going anywhere!  They can generally be found curled up in front of my monitor as I work, which is where Jett is now, or sitting on my lap, or curled up next to me on the bed as I sleep.

Cats are great company and although I swear I won’t have any more after these two are gone, who knows....................