Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October, but when you hold an “attitude of gratitude” it’s easy to give thanks any time of year. And yet, it’s not always easy maintaining an attitude of gratitude, especially during these COVID times.

There’s a lot of information out there on why and how to keep an attitude of gratitude. One tool that works well for me is daily journaling. I refer to a list of about 15 questions/prompts when I sit down to write for 5-10 minutes each evening. The list is ever evolving. The current set of questions/prompts includes:

• What am I feeling grateful for today?
• Who did I appreciate today?

The first question fosters an attitude of gratitude. The second one helps spread that sense of appreciation and can really make a person’s day. What’s your go to technique or tool for regularly feeling thankful?

Enough reflection…time for this month’s photos!

1. Minifig Mighty M Enjoys the Great Outdoors

This image represents so many things we gave thanks for this month. First, Mighty M represents a family member who is a currently a long-term patient in Alberta’s public health care system. Thanks to her entire medical care and rehab support team!

Due to COVID, she’s allowed just one visitor, her spouse. She is doing amazingly well – an inspiration to everyone who’s remotely supporting/following her recovery. We decided to make a Minifig representation to join us on our outdoor adventures. And to share Mighty M photos and videos with her as part of our remote support. Mr. GeoK is getting pretty good at coming up with funny quips or puns to go along with the pictures.

The day I took this photo, we gave also thanks for a Twitter “heads up” about avalanche control scheduled for the east end of Mount Rundle. As a result, we were in the right place at the right time to hear the explosions and watch the resulting avalanches. Check out my Relive video recap for avalanche videos clips.

2. Still Enjoying the Harvest

We had good luck with gardening this year. In November, we continued to appreciate our bountiful harvest, including the last of the carrots, kale, chard, garlic, apples, and these tomatoes. I picked them green in early October, and ripened them in a covered cardboard box. Despite being a big shriveled, they tasted great as the main ingredient in a big batch of homemade salsa.

3. You Are Here Now – Lucky You

There’s a new public art project in Canmore. It’s called the Spur Line Art Trail, and came about under the leadership of a local artist and designer, Lesley Russell. She saved plaques of wood from trees that came down along the Spur Line Trail over the past several years. Some 200 plaques were distributed to people who wanted to contribute their art to the project. More details are in this local newspaper article. The range of art is marvelous and magical. I just had to take a (rare) selfie with this piece that flat out reminds passersby to be present in the moment and place. To see more of the art pieces along this trail, watch Mr GeoK’s Relive video recap.

4. HBO Comes to Alberta

Despite the disruptions to traffic and interruptions to businesses, a lot of people gave thanks this summer & fall that HBO came to Alberta to film “The Last of Us”. It’s reportedly the largest production ever in Canada. Many locals were hired as extras, set security, for set construction and more. Local hotels, restaurants and bus companies got lots of extra business – a boon for the hard-hit hospitality sector.

After stints in Edmonton, Calgary, High River and Fort Macleod, filming moved to Canmore in November. It took crews about 2 weeks to transform Canmore’s main street into post-apocolyptic Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And while we weren’t able to watch any actual filming, very polite security personnel let everyone wander through “the set” when filming was not underway.

5. Mother Nature

I’ve written over and over again about how blessed we are to live in this part of the world, where we have easy access to some of Mother Nature’s most beautiful scenery, plentiful wildlife and a trail system that makes it easy to soak up a daily dose of Vitamin N(ature).

This is just one of many beautiful November sunrises we enjoyed. I truly appreciate that I have time for at least one leisurely cup of coffee before heading out and can still make it to the Bow River in time for scenes like this. Oh, and I also give thanks that my camera has a built in neutral-density filter feature. That’s what makes for the smoother river surface and amazing reflection. 🙂

Boy, did I have a hard time narrowing it down to just 5 images this month, because we also have some great wildlife and waterfall photographs from our wanderings. I managed to sneak one in as the featured photo for this post. Would you like to share something you gave thanks for this month? Drop a comment!

And to see what other photo blogging challenge participants appreciated in November, hop on over to A ‘lil HooHaa and check out the link-up at the bottom of the post. While you’re there, please consider joining our small but mighty community of bloggers for the December PBC. The theme is Holly Jolly, which has lots of scope for creativity.