Giving Thanks - November 18:: A date

Today I have thanks for my Dear, who took me on a date to one of our favorite small concert venues, McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. McCabe's has been around forever. They sell and maintain guitars and other instruments and, in the big sales room -- always ceiling to floor with guitars, is a small concert hall.

Over the years, my husband has seen lots of acts in the room, Marshall Crenshaw, Dirk Hamilton, John Stewart (the singer), Dave Alvin, The Bobs, Rosanne Cash, Peter Case, to name a few. (Here's the list of every artist who's played there.)

When our kiddos were little we saw Peter Himmelman a few times, during his Fabulous Plum period. (Who wouldn't love the guy who wrote and performs, "A World Where You Only Eat Candy" or "I Don't Like to Share"?)

Last night we went to see a female giant of folk, Jennifer Warnes. Her voice is beautiful, and hearing her in a small venue with just three guitars and her, was lovely. We sat in the back, counted the gray heads in the room and thought about everyone she ever sang with. Leonard Cohen helped make her famous, but beyond her spot as a soloist, she's joined with Jackson Brown, Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. I should mention that Oscar for the Officer and A Gentleman song, Love Lifts Us Up with Joe Cocker.

It's interesting that there are people, I'm sure, who go to walk a bit down memory lane, baby boomers do that with a sense that the days aren't really that far behind. She honored the idea by offering a little set within the set to satisfy the desire for the old music. But she also brought lots of new ideas and versions for us to take in.

It was a fun night. It's almost always fun to go, to see, to hear. And, I got a Saturday night date in the rain out of it. Thanks Dear.

Giving Thanks - November 17:: A surprise!

I must say, I don't often win things, but here's some fun. I was reading Beth Moore's blog a while ago and entered her autumn giveaway.

Then weeks later a sweet email came saying, "Hi Friend! I don't if you know this, but you won the 3rd prize in our giveaway..." I was so surprised and I'll be so happy when the box arrives and I can deck my Thanksgiving halls with the darling pillow, etc.

How about that?

I'm thankful for the unforeseen surprise!

How about you? How is all this gratitude effecting your life?

Giving Thanks - November 16:: Brita for Inspiration

In the next town there's a beautiful garden store -- Brita's Old Town Gardens.

It's the store that inspires me to go beyond and seek new plantings and to love a mish mash of colors and always add this and that. (As long as they get the right sun and the right kind of soil.)

I doubt that Brita, a beautiful tall woman with joy exuding as she strolls the garden looking for just what you need, would remember our first meeting. I do. We'd moved into our first home. I knew a bit about gardening, but knew I wanted to know more. And there I was with a flower bed right in front of my living room window. All shade. I was determined to have flowers.

Brita helped find to helitropes and bleeding hearts.

I went to visit her this morning with a couple of tasks. First we had to pick a rose for a climbing wall, then, part shade flowers for beds to live with rooty birches. But the most fun was when I mentioned the Potager garden.

I have a very eclectic garden on the way there now, roses and strawberries and lavender.  But I'm ready to dive in with sweet peas and lettuces and cabbage, and, and, and. Her eyes lit up as we gathered from her stock and toured the lanes of her store grabbing the thymes, and mint and pansies and chard. She heard my love for the white rose next to the lavender, but not just for the color, for the uses and fragrances. She's the gardening friend, but really, the shopkeeper with zest and knowledge for what the garden can be.

I'm enthused about the next steps.

The best inspiration in film is Meryl Streep's potager in It's Complicated. Mine isn't quite this big and won't have the perfect rows, oh, and I don't look like Meryl Streep, nor am I married to Alec Baldwin - but you can believe the colors and joy of the mixture will be there. I love, love, love the tomatoes working up the frameworks. Tomatoes will have to wait while Sweet Peas meander up in mean time.

So, here's my Thanksgiving today: to Brita whose sea blue eyes sparkle and whose ideas breathe breeze into my project. And for the stylist who designed Ms. Streep's garden. To Alec Baldwin for standing there. And for my own Dear Husband, who keeps saying, "I'm glad your doing just what you want there, Dear."

I'm inspired and so grateful for the ones who join in.