Day Ten: My Home

I missed a day!  So today I wasn't sure, should I call today day 10, since it's day 10, or call it day 9, since it's the 9th day I have posted?  In the interest of sticking with the calendar, I am calling it day 10, since I am just that kinda gal.

Yesterday was just a crazy day.  I had to take a stray cat to the vet for shots.  Fortunately, he seems to be already neutered, so I didn't have to pay for that.  He is a very affectionate, young, gray striped tabby.  Hopefully I will be able to find him a home, otherwise he is going to have to be an outside cat.  With my husband's allergies, it's already pushing it having the Curmudgeon Cat inside the house.  Speaking of which, I had to take him in to the vet, too, and have Dr. Laura give him his dose of worm meds  because he will NOT take his medicine in any way, shape, or form.  We've wasted so many pills, crushing them and mixing them into all sorts of lovely dishes of chicken, cheese, eggs, milk - you name it, and he turns his nose up at it.  At $7.50 per pill, I grew tired of that exercise.  And as for shoving a pill down his throat?  Not happening!  So I let her do the deed, and of course, she just grabbed his head and popped that baby right down his throat before he even knew what hit him!  Then he just looked around in surprise, as if to say "What just happened?"

Once I got home and got all good kitties settled in, I made a batch of applesauce from my last picking of apples.  Mmmm, the smell of warm applesauce in the kitchen is heaven!  And my Kindle came in the mail - yay!  It was my anniversary gift from my sweetheart.  Oh, I have been asking for one for Christmas for two years!  So, of course, I was a teeny bit distracted with that for the rest of the afternoon ;)

Anyway...Today I am thankful for my home, be it ever so humble.  And it is a humble home, nothing fancy.  It's very comfortable, though, with a big kitchen, which is good, because I cook a lot, and my family comes here often for big family get-togethers.  I don't decorate like a lot of people do on these blogs, although I think it would be so much fun to do so.  I love to see how people decorate, but I really don't have room for craft items or to display vignettes anywhere.  The things we have in our house are items we have inherited and most of them are purely functional.  They are lamps, wall hangings, framed photos, quilts, etc. and they all have a story, which is kind of nice.  I love a lot of texture, so I have leather, wood and organic fabrics.  And lots of big windows to see outdoors!  We live out in the country, so I see a lot of wildlife.

This lovely doe has been hanging out in my yard for a couple of weeks.

                In this photo, I am talking to her from the open kitchen window.  She is very curious about me!

Sometimes I wish for everything new, like this morning when my dishwasher decided to leak all over the kitchen floor :(  But who doesn't have days like that?  There is no perfect situation, so I just try to keep looking for the positive!

A few flakes of snow this morning at the bus stop!

Day Eight: Educators

I am thankful for the people who teach.  The majority of the teachers I have come in contact with really care about their students and want to see them succeed.  They go beyond the boundaries of their job description and most people have no idea how much work they do.  It is not just showing up in the classroom from 8 to 3 every day.  They have to lesson plan, shop for classroom supplies, correct papers, and if they are in lower grades, they often spend hours doing cut-outs and such for art projects that little ones will need help with.  They are often the ones in our community who also teach Sunday School and Cub Scouts.  I don't know how they find the time to do all they do and have a family too.

I am one of the parents who have had to made a few extra demands on a teacher, and they have been more than accommodating.  I have had to ask for meetings outside of the regular conferences when there was a concern and I have requested permission to observe in a classroom.  With only one exception, the teachers were eager to do whatever was needed to help my children.  I know a few of my blogger friends are teachers and I just want to say - thank you!

Talking about teachers made me think about apples...

                    We picked our last apples from the trees last weekend.

It kind of made me sad to see the end of the apple season.

I hope next year we have as many apples as we did this year!  They were delicious!

  

Day Seven: My Children

I am so thankful for my children.  I have 3 sons and 2 daughters.  They are all grown up now, except for our little 'caboose'.  She keeps us young!

When I got married I wanted to have children right away!  I always knew wanted to be a mom.  I guess that's a testament to my own mother, isn't it?  My husband, being the more level-headed person in this equation, insisted we wait at least 2 years before starting our family.  I'm grateful now that he did, because of course, once we started having children we never again had a moment to ourselves!  That is the way it goes, isn't it?

But I am not complaining.  I have loved motherhood every step of the way. I never understood the term "Terrible Twos" or "Fearsome Fours", or whatever.  I remember saying at each age that 'this is my favorite age'.  Wait, maybe there was a brief time with a teen-age daughter, about 14 years of age - that was a bit rocky...I seem to recall a lot of 'discussions' and a lot of tears.  But on the whole, they are a great group of kids, and I adore each and every one of them.

This is my family, with a couple of grands sprinkled in.  It is a couple of years old already, but in the interest of getting this post out today, I'm using this one anyway ;)

It's a gorgeous day here, I hope it is wherever you are, too!

Day Six: Freedom

I am thankful for freedom.  This is a big one.

 Many  have questioned the "Occupy Wallstreet" movement.  We're not sure what it's all about and what they're trying to accomplish.  I'm not sure even THEY know what they're all about.  Regardless, the freedom to protest is something to be thankful for.

Today I visited a new church.  I really liked it.  It had the feel of my old church, the one I used to be a member of and is no longer in existence.  I miss that old church and have felt like I don't really belong anywhere ever since.  I think I'll go back to this church again next Sunday.  Yet another freedom I appreciate.

Have a great week! I'll be noticing how many times I have the freedom to make choices that are not available in some other parts of the world.

Day Five: Solitude

Oh, I am so thankful for solitude!  I need it - no, I crave it!  I am one of those people who gets a little nuts (translate: cranky)  if I don't have some time alone to re-group on a regular basis.  And I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to spend a part of each day alone.  I stay at home, my daughter goes off to school and my husband goes off to work each day.  I am not anti-social.  I love my family and my friends.  But being around someone 24/7 makes me exhausted, physically and mentally.  Solitude rejuvenates me.  Even if I am doing housework, yard work, grocery shopping, writing, or whatever, I am working things out in my head, and that's what I need to do without someone else talking to me.

I know I am not the only person like this.  I read a book once called "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.  She talked about how different personalities replenish their energy stores in different ways.  Some people feed off the energy of others and are therefore replenished by social interaction, such as a party.  Others, like me, are replenished by 'time out'.  So if your child comes home from school and heads straight for his/her bedroom and shuts the door for a while or zones out with the headphones on and doesn't want to talk to you, maybe it's nothing personal but rather a way of coping after being around people all day.

I guess this came to mind today because it's a 3 day weekend here (Monday is Teachers' Workshop at our school).  So no quiet time around here for me for the next 3 days.  That's ok, I just remind myself how quickly she grows, right before my eyes!

Day Four: Good Health

Sunrise at the bus stop this morning.  The days are getting shorter...

I know everyone says it, but it bears repeating here.  Be thankful for good health.  I am so thankful that I and all of my family members are relatively healthy for the time being.  Like all families we have had our scares.  But we have pulled through and we are all still here, Thank you, God.

But I have to interject something here:  I thank God for getting us through it, not just for the healing.  Because sometimes people don't get better.  And some people have chronic illnesses.  And I feel uncomfortable saying that people who are healed are "blessed".  Does that then mean that those of us who are not healed are not blessed?  No way!   We are still blessed with grace and patience and strength to deal with the things we have to deal with every day when we have chronic pain and/or are handicapped.  Having faith is the only way I can be thankful for everything this life has to offer, in spite of the trials it presents.

This is one of my favorite pictures of a full moon.  I love taking pictures of the full moon, although my favorite subject is trees.  I am obsessed with trees.  But that's worthy of another post...

It is a fabulous, wonderful, scary, beautiful, funny, exciting world, isn't it?

Day Three: My Computer

Yep, my computer.  It ranks right up there at the top of my list, because it allows me to keep in touch with so many people I love.  My mother lives far away and is not good at talking on the phone, but loves to communicate by email.  I print out all of her emails to me.  They are chatty letters telling me everything she does in her daily life.  It might not always be exciting things, but I like hearing about what she is doing.  It's the ebb and flow of the seasons showing up in her writing - digging up the geraniums and planting the bulbs in the fall, planting the seeds in the spring, washing the windows, etc.

My brothers are also far away, and I know we wouldn't hear from each other much if it weren't for email or facebook.  We all have busy lives and the chances of making a connection by phone are not good.  But an email can wait until the recipient is available, and that makes so much more sense to me.  Not only that, but we share photos - definitely a bonus.

My own children are all grown except for one.  Most of the time we keep in touch by texting since they are fairly close by, but we still email a lot and exchange photos and information that way.

When my brother David passed away a year and a half ago, the huge amount of connections I made on facebook was wonderful.  It was amazing how quickly people 'circled around' and offered comfort!  People I hadn't heard from in years were able to find me and get in touch - for many of them it was the only way they would have found information about the funeral arrangements as they were from far away.

My husband teases me for being addicted to my computer, but, yes, that's what I'm giving thanks for today :)