Welcome Yolanda Sfetsos, my last Thankful Guest

Firstly, I’d like to thank Ginger for having me over here today. :)

We don’t actually celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not thankful for a lot of things in my life. There's a lot to be thankful for.  

First and foremost, I’m grateful for my small and wonderful family, and that the four of us (hubby, daughter, cat & I) have such a lovely life together. It doesn’t take much to keep us happy. As long as we’re spending time together, we’re smiling. I’m also thankful for my health (and theirs too), the strong sense of willpower I have most of the time, and that I have so many wonderful choices about how to live my life.

Then, there are the other things. The smaller every day things that most of us take for granted, but I can’t help and admire whenever spring rocks around. I love where we live, and the surroundings. We have a river nearby, and I absolutely adore going for my daily walks along the path. I also love the way it feels when the day is slowly blending into night on a summer day. I love warm summer nights, when there’s just enough of a cool breeze coming in through the window to cool me down. I love being indoors when a thunderstorm strikes, or when it rains. I enjoy waking up nice and early, when it’s still dark, and looking out the window to realize that the rest of the world is still asleep, but will wake in a few hours...

I love books—collecting them, reading them, holding them—and am forever thankful that I get to have my own books out there in the wild. This makes me very thankful for the publishers who have taken a chance on me and have given my stories homes, so they can be read by people from all over the world.  

I have to admit that I'm a gadget gal—Kindle, mobile phone, laptop, netbook, MP3 player, Nintendo DS, etc—so I'm thankful to be able to purchase these cool things. I'm also thankful for the music that gets my creative juices going. There are two bands in this world that never fail to inspire me, and for them I'm grateful too.

As you can probably tell, there are a lot of things that I love and am grateful for in this world, but most of them are the simple pleasures in life. I love to see my daughter smile and express herself, love to make my husband laugh and chat to him about anything and everything. And I really enjoy it when my cat actually knows what I’m saying to him and responds.

A lot of things make me smile, laugh, or feel wonderful, and glad to be alive. And without one of those in particular, I think I would go insane. Of course, I’m talking about my muse. Without my muse, I wouldn’t have the ability or drive to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. Or be able to find inspiration in just about anything I see or hear, and eventually turn it into ideas that become stories. 

I love being creative, enjoy expressing myself with words, and telling stories... So, thank you so much, my faithful muse. 

Oh, and I’m forever thankful that my husband is supportive enough to take the brunt of working a full-time job so that I can stay home and write (ie. listen to my muse) while my daughter’s at school.

I’m very thankful for a lot of things, and try to never take any of them for granted.

Thanks for reading,

Yolanda

www.yolandasfetsos.com