It may seem a little odd to write about Thanksgiving on the day after Thanksgiving. But, somehow, I think God would appreciate our being thankful every day of the year. My blessings are such that I try never to forget to be thankful.

I made my weekly photographic journey through the American Tobacco Historic District on Wednesday before Thanksgiving this week. I am confident that the hundreds of construction workers on the site, though clearly attuned to their important tasks at hand, were also thinking ahead to their two day holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I asked Joseph Speed from Oxford if he was thinking ahead to being off for Thanksgiving and his reply came through a grin as wide as his face. "I'm going to eat some turkey, some ham and a whole lot of something else too."

I photographed one worker completing his time sheet before the holiday began and a spirit of joy, which I interpreted to be a spirit of Thanksgiving, was projecting outward from his smile and his eyes.

When thinking of the hundreds of jobs that have been and are being created by this mammoth project, when thinking of the preservation of a historical site of such significance, and when thinking of bringing new life to a part of Downtown Durham that has been closed and decaying for 16 years - taking all of that into account has to spark a feeling of Thanksgiving.

The fact that so much is being done here to restore and rejuvenate a part of the past has to evoke warm feelings. Thanksgiving evokes warm feelings.

All of us in North Carolina should pause to be thankful for the positive ways that so many lives are being impacted here.

This is not just a construction project. It's so much more.

Look carefully at the expression of the worker filling out the time sheet. It's a warm, thankful expression.