In the USA, we are celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday. It's a big family day, a big dinner day, a big football day, and a holiday to give thanks for your blessings.

How lucky we are to have a holiday to give thanks.

Have you ever noticed how much better you feel when you're thankful? Have you ever felt upset and then looked at some of the things you’re grateful for and snapped out of some funk?

We are all hit with massive amounts of information daily. There are endless streams of opinion in the world, and sometimes you discover something good, and sometimes you run across things that hardly make sense.

But don’t you love it when you run into a brick of 24-karat gold wisdom? Don’t you love it when you find a piece of knowledge that you know is the truth? The kind of knowledge that you don't have to waste your time trying to convince yourself is true? 

I remember the first summer we lived in Nashville. I walked 50 feet from my car into a Food Lion grocery store and when I arrived, I felt like a cowboy who’d just rode through Death Valley and was ready to fall off his horse.

I felt like a drunk stumbling out of a bar. It was hard to compose myself. I had unknowingly fought the sun, and the sun won. It was a 20-second fight and I began to wither a third of the way in.

That was when I learned the meaning of the word, Faint, F A I N T.

Scarlett O’Hara…

To me, the best art comes when you create without a self-conscious filter and a willingness to go for it. Being a self-loathing critic of your own art while you're in the middle of making something can stop you in your tracks. People can even become so afraid of producing bad art or doing something wrong that they hold themselves back from doing their art at all.

What is a new year, but the chance for a fresh start? What is a new year, if not a time to realign, redo, and recommit to the goals, purposes, dreams, and plans that are important to us?

A new year. A new beginning. A new way of looking at things. A new goal. A new reason. A new day.

A new year is not the last year or the year before. It's a new year. What will you do with it?

A few weeks ago, I sat with 2,500 people in Kalamazoo, MI., and listened to the critically acclaimed musical duo The War and Treaty. The last song they sang was Let There Be Peace on Earth. It was moving.

Later that night, I thought more about the song and felt I understood what it was saying for the first time.

Last week, my brother spotted this balloon flying above my mother's house. He told us to come out and see it. It's an exciting day when you find a hot air balloon flying overhead, especially if The Great and Powerful Oz is on board, which he happened to be.

The Wizard was throwing free brains, courage, and heart over the side of the basket.

Can a girl write love poems or is that supposed to be left to men?

I get inspired at around three in the morning when the rest of the world is sleeping. It seems like people start getting careless with their dreams about that time, and dreams begin floating down my street.

There is something to be said about perseverance. There is something to be said about not giving up even when it looks like you don't have a chance in hell.

There is something to be said about putting yourself out there for all to see. No matter what the goal.