{"id":20192,"date":"2014-11-27T00:01:51","date_gmt":"2014-11-27T08:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=20192"},"modified":"2014-11-27T00:01:51","modified_gmt":"2014-11-27T08:01:51","slug":"seven-reasons-to-be-grateful-this-thanksgiving-starting-with-the-rain-a-leaky-dishwasher-and-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/seven-reasons-to-be-grateful-this-thanksgiving-starting-with-the-rain-a-leaky-dishwasher-and-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Reasons to Be Grateful This Thanksgiving: Starting With the Rain, a Leaky Dishwasher, and You"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/a>
Our 2000 Maytag sprang a leak after fourteen years of service. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

Some reasons to be grateful this Thanksgiving:<\/p>\n

One.<\/strong> Stuffing! Stuffing alone would make the Thanksgiving Day meal my favorite of the year. But at our house there’s a bonus — pumpkin pie.<\/p>\n

Two. <\/strong><\/strong>A leaky dishwasher. Our 14-year-old Maytag dribbled water onto the kitchen floor and through it to the ceiling of my office below. Why am I grateful? Because the old dishwasher gave up the ghost three weeks ago, and not on the day before Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Our new dishwasher, a Kenmore with de rigueur stainless steel facade, is disturbingly quiet. Is it really washing the dishes? So far, they’ve come out clean. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three. <\/strong>Rain. Lots of good rain last week, enough to turn the California hills green for the holidays.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fo<\/strong>ur. <\/strong>Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith<\/em>. The manuscript is finished. My editor at Patheos Press has edited it. Religion writer Don Lattin (Distilled Spirits<\/em>, The Harvard Psychedelic Club<\/em>) has written the foreword. And the publication date is set: Feb. 3, 2015.<\/p>\n

Five.<\/strong> Friends and family. So many people have loved me over the years, some of them are alive today, some not.<\/p>\n

Six.<\/strong> You. Yes, you dear reader. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t get to chatter away every week, happy in the knowledge that somebody, somewhere is taking me seriously.<\/p>\n

Seven<\/strong>. More stuffing! I’m going to have seconds. Thirds, if no one is looking.<\/p>\n

To see what a California drought can look like, go to “For Wetter, For Drier, I’m Married to California.”<\/a>\u00a0 My 2012 thanksgivings are at “I’m Thankful for a Clean Oven, Fresh Ice Cubes . . . and a Daughter-in-Law to Be.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
I’m also grateful for our neighbor’s beautiful Monterey pine, which they keep pruned so nicely. Here, in the misty light of last week’s rain. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Thick<\/a><\/p>\n

A book that’s done and ready to go. Enough rain to green up the hills for the holidays. Pumpkin pie. And you! I’ve got reasons to be grateful, big and small. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1110,1362,1363,55,82,1135,53],"class_list":["post-20192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-don-lattin","tag-leaky-dishwasher","tag-monterey-pines","tag-family-stories","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-thanksgiving","tag-wrestling-with-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}