Always Thankful

Several years ago I found a wonderful group of people out here in the blogosphere who made a regular habit of listing ten things they were thankful for during their week. While I may not publish weekly “Ten Things of Thankful” or “TToT” posts anymore, I have made the practice of gratitude part of my everyday life. Every now and then something – or someone (ahem…Dyanne) – will prompt me to join the Ten Things of Thankful gang for a round of gratitude. I don’t know if I’ll hit ten here, but we’ll see how it goes.

First, in this pandemic age, I am grateful for my health and the health of my family. I am grateful for medical and scientific personnel everywhere who have cared for us, developed treatments and vaccines, and more. Even on days when I don’t feel my physical best, I know that I am blessed with overall good health, good medical care, and outstanding doctors.

While we have all grown a bit weary of the at-home world, I am actually very grateful for mine. Two-thirds of our little family was already home-based before all of this and so when the shutdowns happened and life moved home, it wasn’t a terrible shock for us. We’ve been able to ride out the last many months comfortably, safely, and with one another. I’m thankful for tools like Zoom to help make virtual game nights and happy hours happen. I am thankful for finally being able to start visiting with family and friends in person.

On the subject of working from home, I am ever thankful to have carved out a life doing what I love and doing it on my own terms. I’m grateful to have a nice stream of work and for the connections that have opened the doors to those opportunities.

I am thankful for the (sometimes irritating) company of our last Rotten Cat standing. Cats One and Three are no longer with us and those losses have been so very hard on all of us. But our scrappy little Cat Two is still here making sure we all get the appropriate amount of kitty rubs every day and happily accepting every ounce of attention heaped upon him in return. And it’s a lot, let me tell you. This little guy is more spoiled than all three Rottens were in the first place if that’s even possible.

It is summer once again and officially CSA season. I am so grateful for fresh produce straight from a local farm. Not only is it delicious and healthy, but it makes my menu planning so easy. I just work from what comes in the box each week and explore the possibilities.

I am thankful to be blessed with a really terrific kid who is awesome in so many ways. I learn from her every single day.

I am always thankful for my husband – the “Fab Hub” here on the blog. I am grateful for his friendship, his patience (it takes a lot to live with me), and his fortitude in co-parenting our newly-minted teenager. I am always grateful for his good nature and sense of humor, especially when he agrees to be the subject of many a story here on the blog.

Finally, I am thankful that no airplanes landed on the roof of my car yesterday. I was sitting at an intersection near our local airport and must have been directly in the flight path of one of the runways because during my time in traffic there, about six planes approached the runway so close to my car I could see the color of the pilot’s eyes. OK, maybe not, but it was close. And it was terrifying. So I’m also pretty thankful that they were relatively small planes. Pretty sure a large international airliner would’ve sent me into a medical emergency.

I am certain that I’ve hit ten somewhere along the way here. If not, I hereby invoke whatever number rule is necessary from the Book of Secret Rules/Secret Book of Rules that says I’m allowed to actually have as many or as few things on my list as I want or, hey, not even list them at all.

I have not been anything like profound (or perhaps even coherent) here today, but let’s go with saying I’m thankful that I wrote anything at all and that I made good on my promise to Dyanne to jump in this weekend. Yay.

I leave you with a final bit of wisdom: If you find yourself sitting through three or four traffic light changes in the direct path of the runway approach for commuter flights, it’s probably best not to have the car window open or to stare at them head-on as they approach. Or, you know, maybe next time take another route to your destination.

That is all. Be well, friends, and be always thankful.

 

 

Image courtesy of Greg Montani via Pixabay.