Tomorrow our family will all be at our home for the Thanksgiving feast.  All the effort in cleaning and cooking may or may not be noticed but what will be noticed is that we have all placed another year behind us.  What will we be thankful for?   I know that there will be two new homes to celebrate and even more importantly, a new granddaughter.  Adela will be celebrating her first Thanksgiving and in honor of the occasion she has just begun to perfect her crawling.  In not too long she will stand and soon there after she will take her first cautious steps.  And suddenly the world will open up to her.

For the success of my family and the birth of our first granddaughter, I am truly thankful.  We will celebrate the day and remember the year.  But there is one more event that I will be celebrating.  After a 25 year career in teaching and a 19 year career as a financial planner, I chose to retire.  This Thanksgiving I will look back at lifetime of accomplishments and lasting relationships.  I am so incredibly thankful for all the people that have passed through my life as students, clients, co-workers and friends.  Each one left their mark on me and I have become the sum total of all those relationships.  It would be so easy for me to look back and take credit for all the assistance and advice I gave over the years but the truth is I received so much more than I ever gave.  That is the beautiful thing about life.  It is not so much what you do, but more so what you do with the opportunities life gives you through the lives of the people who intersect with yours.

I am now relishing retirement and am thankful that my career has led me to this place.  I have decided that I will spend my retirement finding ways to pay forward all the wisdom and experiences given to me by the multitude of people who have shared my journey.  For my family, my career, my friends and my life, I am thankfully thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving 2017