Share Your World - 2016 Week 47 (Grateful list)

Because it is Thanksgiving week here, Cee has veered slightly from her usual style for her blog challenge at Share Your World.  This week using her cue, I am posting a list and linking it to Share Your World - 2016 Week 47 (Grateful list).

1.  Your home life?  My husband and I have been married for 53 years and have lived our entire married life in Oregon, mostly on the west side of the Cascades.  I have loved growing old with him.  He brings a lot of joy and laughter into our home.

2.  Your family?  We have three grown children, two daughters and a son.  They are all married.  We have 12 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.  Of our parents, my Mother, who will be 100 years old within a few months, is the only one still living.  She is living in a nursing home now due to the type of care that she requires with advanced Alzheimer's.

3.  Your blogging community?  I've participated in Cee's five blog hop challenges, Ten Things of Thankful, Six Sentence Stories, Finish the Sentence Friday, Ronovan Writes #Weekly #Haiku #Poetry Prompt #Challenge, TJ's Household Haiku Challenge, and some others.  It has been fun to try to develop my own talents by seeing the talents that others have shared on these blogs.  I am fairly new to blogging compared to others.

4.  Your city or immediate area in which you live?  We live outside the city limits between Turner and Salem, Oregon.  We both enjoy being able to have neighbors, but like having some space and property between the houses.

5.  The regional area in which you live?  The Pacific Northwest is home.  I love being able to live out in the country, but being able to drive within an hour or two to the largest city in the state, to the coast, into the Cascades or over to Central Oregon.  This state is so diversified in its terrain too, and that is an education in itself.  The changing seasons have their own beauty.

Smith Rocks in Central Oregon

On a hill near Stayton, Oregon

Near Yachats, Oregon

6.  The country where you live?  I live in the United States of America.  My ancestors came here very early on when the country was being founded and settled by people from other countries.  As far as I have been able to determine, I don't have any Native American heritage, although I've wondered if I don't have some Mulungeon heritage.  I wish I knew all my ancestors' personal stories, other than what I can glean from history books.  We live in an age when there is so much out there about our personal lives, but once upon a time, that wasn't the case.

7.  You?  I am thankful for who I am, thanks to all those who came before me.  I'm thankful for what I have been able to learn about what it might have been like to live during their lifetime in the places where they lived and with some of the hardships they had. Knowing these things has given me a greater understanding of my more immediate ancestors, and even of myself.  I have a strong faith in God, and that has carried me through during some of the rough spots that one goes through in life.  I give credit to the blessings in my life to Him also.