It's been quite a Thanksgiving weekend both for me personally and world-wide by listening to the news this morning and the last several days. 

First of course, were the attacks in India.  How tragic and unneccessary.  For what?  Many died at the hands of another just because.  Basically. 

My journalist son called to say the first two reported came from Lynchburg which is where he is.  Many already know a Rabbi and his wife were killed.  Basically just for being Jewish. 

I believe this is going to get worse.  It's coming here and it will be just a matter of probably a few months.  Time will tell. 

Then there were the reports of people killing one another in a Toy Store over what?  What possibly could have turned a shopping trip into a killing spree?  The women left behind who witnessed this must realize now how foolish it was for them to brawl (in a toy store of all places) in the first place. 

Then of course, the very unimaginable.  A man who was just trying to do his job gets trampled to death while he's trying to open the inside doors to Walmart. 

If that wasn't bad enough, just the attitude of the shoppers after finding out the store was closing immediately as a result of this tragic act of violence was reprehensible, not to mention very callous and cold. 

Good Grief!  This is supposed to be Thanksgiving.  A time to reflect back on the year and think about the many blessings we've had.  For some it's nothing but a time to put themselves first and get what they want no matter who gets in their way.  How unfortunate for them and the people around them. 

I've only participated in two Black Fridays in my whole life.  Last year and this year.  Last year it was a first for my son and I.  We got up while it was still dark and stood in line about 5 am.  We hit our stores finishing by nine or ten and had a great time. 

This year we went out again but didn't leave the house until about 9 or so.  There was only one big item on his list that he thought he might have missed out on at Best Buy by not leaving in darkness like last year.  I didn't have anything I had to have.  I can shop anytime during the week so it's not that big of a deal to me.  There's always deals out there. 

It turned out when we did finally hit the Best Buy at noon or so, his item was still there.  He got it afterall and we didn't have to lose sleep to purchase it.  Great!   He was quite surprised and happy. 

Probably for me the very best buy I got was to purchase a $100 gift certificate at Lowe's.  By doing so, I would recieve another $20 giftcard in the mail.  On top of that they gave me a $10 gift certificate I could use right then for the item I initially came in for.  I bought my husband a  "tool"  that was on sale and purposefully purchased the gift certificate to get the extra money.  But now I had an extra $10 not counted on when I walked into the store.  I then bought his gift, got the extra money off and was very happy about that.  But then because I purchased this item, I got another $10 certificate at the register to be used before Christmas.  So in all I spent $100 and received an extra free $40 for later purchases.  Not bad.

We then went to CVS where I spent $37 and received about $40 in free CVS bucks.  So I got all of my items free and the few coupons I had for the items to begin with gave me that extra cash.  So basically for a couple of the items they actually paid me to purchase them.  Pretty cool.  I have a month to use my $40 extra CVS cash. 

We then came home, unloaded our treasures and went out to play pickleball.  I ran to the court with Courtney, my son's soon to be wife.  We only ran a mile or so.  Immediately we started to play ball and within a few minutes I was practically on the ground clutching my leg.  I pulled a calf muscle big time.  I couldn't walk for quite a few minutes.  When I could get up it was to painfully hobble to the golf cart to get home for some ice.  I couldn't get home fast enough. 

I spent the night on the couch with a big ace bandage wrapped around my leg tying a bag of ice on the injured area.  I should be out of it for a few days.  It's pretty painful. 

All in all though, as I think about what's going on all over the world, my heart is heavy for the families left behind.  I am truly thankful for my family, my health and my God more than ever before. 

My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been tragically affected these last few days.