Thanksgiving Day 29: The gifts to the TH

Nilgiris is truly a group effort - I was sitting here this evening contemplating how much I have been given, and here is a brief, partial, list of the treasures that I see as I look around me: Piano, encyclopedia set, barn pictures, jigsaw puzzles, dining chairs, baskets and embroidery and pictures on walls, Mr. Erickson's chair, lamp, ornaments, tablecloths, tea cups (ALL the teacups currently on the Wall of Great China have been given to Nilgiris!), fridges, toaster oven, cooler, tea pots and kettles, cushions, books, almost all ornaments for the Tea Tree in the entrance ...

Then there's the gift of time: people who have stayed around to help me do dishes late on a Saturday evening; people who've visited in the kitchen and ended up stirring a pudding or pie on a Sunday morning; people who call up to say they're thinking about the TH and they're in the city -- do I need anything picked up?; people who shoot me an email; people who drop by for coffee during the week ...

Of course, my staff is one of my biggest gifts: almost all of them are willing to stay for an extra half hour if we're busy, or come in on short notice, or juggle three tasks at once, or work special functions out of TH hours ...

And one of my biggest treasures is the guestbook. Caite found it at an antique mall and it looked exactly like the ledger books we used to use to order and record delivery of bread and milk when we lived in the Nilgiris! So of course it became the guest book back in 2003. My brother was the first person to sign it on April 5, 2003, when we had the contractors' thank you party. Since then we have accumulated 273 pages full of records of people who have graced this little place. Regulars to the TH and my staff know that if Nilgiris suddenly goes up in flames, the one thing we need to grab is the guest book!

Thank you, all of you, for blessing this place and for being part of the reason it blesses other people.