"happy thanks-gibbing back"

I'm thankful for this street

and these feet

which aren't nearly this small anymore . . . but they still fit in the cutest little black cowboy boots you've ever seen. I'm thankful for those too. And for the thousand-and-one pairs of tennis shoes that spread throughout this house each day. I'll be so sad when I get ready for bed one evening years and years from now and there aren't any more little shoes to pick up. I'm sure I'll have other things to be thankful for then. But today, I'm thankful for all the usual things - fall leaves, Christmas commercials, cashews in my Chinese food, caffeine-free Diet Coke with a bendy straw, all the movies I can't wait to see and all the ones I watch again and again,

and being lucky in love.

But since I just straightened them - for the hundredth time - onto the little white shelf on the back porch

and because of everything they represent,

I am especially thankful for all the little shoes,

and for

the feet

that fill them.