So thankful

One of my greatest irritants on Thanksgiving is this. I LOVE to go around the table and share what we are thankful for. I could do this for hours. I am so thankful for so much. I also love to hear what other people are thankful for. Sometimes it surprises me, sometimes not. Either way, I always come away feeling more thankful for the person who shared. Yet, it never fails that every Thanksgiving there are many people in my family who groan at this tradition. They hate it. They have a hard time coming up with something. Of course, we do it anyway, but I hate that they don't want to do it. How can we NOT be thankful?

I am so thankful. I have been amazingly blessed... in abundance. Oh, how I don't deserve any of it. It's all a huge gift.

I am so thankful that I am pregnant, when I didn't think we'd be able to get pregnant easily. I am so thankful that we're having a little girl, when I really didn't think I'd ever get to mother a girl. This blesses my soul so deeply. I am thankful that she is healthy and growing well - she is a miracle. I am thankful that my body knew how to do this!

I am so thankful for my wonderful husband. He loves me so deeply, so tenderly, and without reservation. He has been taking amazing care of me without complaint. I feel guilty that I am so tired, and he does so much. He just smiles and tells me I'm busy climbing a mountain. I love him. We are also thankful that he got a new job recently and loves it. I'm thankful for how diligently he provides for our family in so many different ways.

I am so thankful that I have parents and an extended family I love. They are a joy to me. I wish we were all closer and saw each other more. I know many people who don't wish that of their family. I am blessed.

I am so thankful for my church and the families in it. I love our worship together. I love the relationships we've made. I love going to church, and again, I know many people that don't. Very, very blessed.

I am so thankful for our warm, cozy home. I do try to guard my thanksgivings against materialism, but I truly am. I recognize this is a gift - I know many people do not have a warm, cozy home to call their own. In recent days, I've spent a bit of time reading by the fire, under a blanket, drinking warm tea, listening to Christmas music. Ahhhh. I absolutely love it. Best of all, we've been in this house for about 9-11 months, depending on how you look at it, and it's finally feeling cozier. We've been putting pictures up, painting some walls, and making it ours. It makes these moments all the more cozier. I love our house. We hosted thanksgiving this year in our big dining room, everyone sitting around a big table. I LOVED it.

And of course, I am so thankful for the gift I've been given of salvation - eternity with the King. I have done nothing to deserve this, nor will I ever. I'm completely undeserving. It is truly a gift. He is the giver of all good things, and I can't hardly imagine an eternity enjoying His majesty. I'm so grateful that God wants relationship with me. It doesn't make sense to me, but I know He does. What a great, great gift.

So thankful.

WFMW: Cheap "insurance"

The other day I came home from doing some errands, and hubs had gotten home before me. This kitchen was a mess! Turns out that we had had a leak under our sink (ok, really we had a garbage can thing under there that turned the plumbing bolt thingy every time you pulled out the garbage can). There was a flood! Thankfully, it didn't spill out, mainly because there is linoleum in the cabinet that curls up in the front - it held all the water in.

Anyway - everything was a mess under there. Hubs pulled everything out to toss it our dry it out. Praise God - it turns out we had some cheap insurance that we didn't even know about.

We had a nearly full roll of paper towels under the sink (unwrapped). It acted as a huge wick and soaked up tons of water. Even though only part of the roll touches the linoleum, the full roll was absolutely soaking wet. Hubs was pretty sure that this saved us from the water spilling over the linoleum and into our kitchen.

That works for me! We decided that we should always keep a roll of paper towels under the kitchen sink, just in case. It's pretty cheap flood insurance!

Observations

I hate to eavesdrop, but sometimes you can't help it. The people next to you are just too loud, or too intriguing - like the aftermath of a bad car accident on the freeway.

Observation #1:
Last Sunday, hubs and I were eating at a local fast food Mexican place after church - Qdoba. Ok, really - we do this every single Sunday. I love, love, love Qdoba. There are never enough tables there, and the tables that ARE there, are always super squished together. There was a family of four (two adolescent children) sitting next to us. We were so distracted by their conversation; our table ended up being a pretty quiet one. They were a sad train wreck. Their conversation represented all that is wrong with our culture and with marriage today. First, they spent a long time talking about their family schedule for the week. Well, the wife did (ok, she really dominated the conversation the entire time). She had her electronic device out, and proceeded to inform the husband of all of the things she had scheduled for each day of the week. It took a long time. Then the discussion turned to their schedule for that afternoon. She needed to get some things at the grocery store, but forgot the list at home. She wanted them to go up the hill to their house, go get the list, then go back out to do their errands, though she was NOT happy about it. The kicker here was her reasoning - she absolutely refused to use her day off with the kids (Vets day) to do "family errands." No way. The family errands had to get done on Sunday so that she could spend Monday however she wanted.

It was just sad. The husband was so quiet, so beaten down. What a wife! There was no joy at their table. The family wasn't enjoying being together at all - they just sat there and listened to mom rant and rave. Sad.

Observation #2:
Hubs went to the grocery store for me last night (he is my hero!!!) and called to ask about a particular item. He also had to share a sad observation. He was watching a family of 4 or 5 in the frozen food aisle. All of them - parents and kids - were all extremely overweight. They were carrying their food items with them, which included several kinds on (non-diet) soda, and some other junk food items that I can remember right now (chips or something). They were standing in the aisle arguing over which FOUR kinds of ice cream to get. It was yet another representative picture of many problems in our culture.

Obviously they don't, but I always wonder if these people realize how much of a stereotypical picture (of bad things!) they have created. If they realized it, would it make them sad? Would they be ashamed, make excuses, think it's funny? I wonder what sad stereotypical pictures other people see me in that I don't recognize. Oh, I pray for eyes to see them, whether they are in public or private.

The truth

Is it a bad sign when the gal at Subway tells you that you look tired?

Baby news!

And the verdict is in... thanks to the amazing technology we enjoy today, I get to share the news that in about 20 more weeks, I will be the proud mommy of a baby girl. A daughter.

There are so many boys in my husband's family, and so few girls. I've been preparing myself for years (and especially the last few months) that we will likely only have boys. I love boys, and would have been happy with this situation, but I did long for a girl too. I didn't have any brothers, so when I think of "childhood", I think of girls and girly things. Hubs and I both hoped and thought it might be a girl, but didn't hardly say it outloud, knowing how unlikely it was.

So, while I was there... laying on the reclined "big chair", with warm goop on my tummy, looking at the blobs on the screen, I couldn't believe it when the doctor mentioned that our DAUGHTER looked beautiful. He waited until about halfway through - purposefully keeping the suspense.
He was certain about that diagnosis right away, and then made us wait a while. Let me assure you, he had reason to think it was a girl...and it included anatomy words that I won't post on the blog. We definitely had a good money shot - and it's a girl.

My question back to him (really? it's a girl??) barely came out in a whisper. Tears flowed. Hubs held my hand. It was amazing. I could look at that video of her beating heart all day long. We got a DVD of it - I think I might go watch it again.

It's a girl. I will have a daughter - a daughter I never thought I'd have.