Local Restaurants

I'm grateful for our local restaurants, like Sea Island and Fat Tummy Empanadas and Gogi Street and Dough.  There are so many that I still want to try, too.  San Antonio has so many restaurant choices that if a place isn't good, it usually doesn't last long. 

Lip balm

Seriously, in this cold weather, lip balm is something my whole family is grateful for.  I'm going to make it with my girls in the very near future using the recipe from the Farmer's Almanac.

Dog training

The new puppy is named Thunder.  She is amazing.  I'm training her to be a working dog and she is a natural.  My nerdlet is on the spectrum and we have had elopement scares twice since she has moved to the middle school, (STEM Academy) that she is attending, so my plan was basically to teach the puppy to behave in public and to track and find the girls (mostly the nerdlet and the bear cub), but she is such a natural that I have bigger plans for her now. 

One of the things that I often misplace is my phone.  I always know where it is when I am home, but I pick it up when leaving the house and inevitably something or someone distracts me and I put it down in some unstandard place.  At that point, I use the computer to call it and then listen for the ring to find it.  Today when I called it, Thunder ran to the phone (in the bathroom) and barked at it.  She is going to be very, very helpful if she can find and retrieve things.

Warmth

I'm so grateful for a warm house.  It is so COLD outside.  The wind is blowing so hard that my van was swaying back and forth and that I was sure something was going to fly from the side of the road into the side of the van.  Here in San Antonio, we rarely have a freeze in November and it looks like we will have multiple days of freezes, some with precipitation, and we are not prepared for that ever.  San Antonio doesn't have salt or sand for the road or the vehicles to even distribute it.  On top of that, our city is huge - larger than multiple cities up north (and one state).  So I'm grateful for a well insulated house and family and furry family to warm it.

Stay warm, people.

Pinterest

I am grateful for Pinterest.  I used to use bookmarks which worked well enough but it is much nicer to have pictures.  Without Pinterest, I would have 50,000 tabs open on my computer, mostly of recipes and sewing ideas.  Even with Pinterest, I always have a handful of these tabs open.  I also love that people can recommend pins to you, though so far only my sister does that.

Movie nights

My husband and I rarely have a night to ourselves, especially since we have extra children living with us, so I am extremely grateful for the times that we get to spend by ourselves. 

Last night we saw the newest Addams Family movie, which we chose based mostly on what was available at the time, but we ended up enjoying it immensely.

I particularly enjoyed the soundtrack and the last song "My Family" by Migos · KAROL G · Snoop Dogg · Rock Mafia, so much so that I've listened to it quite a few times since seeing the movie last night.

Some Days

Some days I am grateful just to get through.  This was one of those days.

My neighbor girls

These beautiful girls have lived next door since before I moved in.  At the time they were in elementary school (except the youngest) and I always saw them running around together.  By the time I had the bear cub, the oldest started helping with Chloe's therapy, helping the bear cub with her crawling, standing, walking, and climbing stairs.  It wasn't long until the girls were babysitting and watching my furry babies.  I am so grateful to have these responsible and kind girls next door to help out.  Every parent should be as blessed to have such great neighbors.

Digital Cameras

I'm grateful for digital cameras and having so many old pictures to go through.  I found these recently of some of my relatives and I am so grateful to have them.

My aunt and godmother

Another aunt with my godmother

Yet another aunt with my godmother

One of my uncles

Another of my uncles

Voting Day

Today, I am grateful that the voting is at the girls' elementary school.  I completely forgot that today was voting and locally there are a lot of tax and funding items that I wanted to make sure and vote on.  If voting were not there, I likely would not have voted at all.  I'm also thankful that I had an opportunity before today to look over all the items as a number of them are written backwards.

Bountiful Baskets and River City Produce

I am grateful for all my options for fresh produce available.  I contribute for a conventional basket with Bountiful Baskets every other week and I actually ran our site for quite some time and am still the back up for our local site.  You contribute Monday or Tuesday (today or tomorrow for our site) and you pick up your produce on Saturday.  For less than $20, you get 12 items of produce straight from the distributor.  The people that contribute to our site are mostly regulars and it feels like a community and when a new contributor arrives, we do our best to make sure that they feel welcome, too.   They also have extras that I often choose.

Here is the most recent picture of a conventional basket that I got (I believe from a month ago).  I actually still have a number of the limes and apples, which are still good.

This is the tropical pack I got two weeks ago as an add-on. 

River City Produce is a local produce distributor, which actually used to be the provider for our local Bountiful Baskets site before they decided to try to consolidate all their sites in Texas under a single distributor, but which I still love a lot.  They have good deals and are family and locally owned and operated. 

On top of these two great choices, we are in a great gardening zone so that we have many other sources for fresh produce, including many local farms that are within decent driving distances.  On top of that, I have what my nerdlet calls pepper trees growing in my yard.  They have gotten so big as to tower over me and produce bell peppers, habaneros, and poblanos (so far).  I also have a number off citrus trees and other plants and herbs.  I feel so lucky to be living in this area and having so many options.

Kinetic Kids and Special Olympics

Kinetic Kids is a San Antonio organization that helps children with special needs enjoy sports, and foster the development of courage, confidence, fitness, pride, joy and community.  I am so grateful for them and for Special Olympics which my bear cub enjoys so much.  

The bear cub has been in gymnastics for a relatively short period of time (over a year) but it has done so much for her confidence and strength.

BTW, the leotard is a Jalie pattern.

Allergy shots

I am so grateful for allergy shots.  So grateful.  Growing up, I was always sick.  I constantly had sinus infections and respiratory issues.  This carried into my being an adult.  Since I have started getting allergy shots that has all changed.  I get the maximum amount of shots and the doctor said that it was very rare to have as many allergies as I do without having food allergies, so I am also super thankful for not having any food allergies.

About 3 years ago, I was encouraged to take the Bear Cub for allergy tests by the school nurse.  I figured as long as I was taking her, I would have them test me and take care of the severe reactions I had to Christmas trees and some cats.  The Bear Cub turned out to be allergy free and my whole back puffed up and turned red.  The only trees that I am not allergic to are mountain cedar and live oak, which are the two most common trees here in San Antonio, so I am thankful for that.

I am allergic to both types of dust mites and also dogs.  I have large allergenic dogs that I sleep with and I had so many allergies inside and out that having them in my house did not make a noticeable change in my reactions.  I also carried books everywhere since I started school and so I was basically carrying my dust mite allergies around with me everywhere.  So a 4th thing I am super thankful for is the Kindle.

My two newest family allergens:

Lightning

And Thunder.

Thankful

It's November 1st and I did not realize how long it has been since I posted.  I may have mentioned before that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  For me there is nothing better than celebrating being grateful with friends and family and food.

Today I am especially grateful for heating, especially in the car.  We're having unseasonable cold here in San Antonio and I am not prepared.  I have my grandbabies living with me and I don't have enough warm clothes for me or for the baby handy.  I've made a number of pairs of pants for her but no warm tops yet so I'm so thankful that while dropping all the girls off at school that we can be nice and comfy in the car.

As an added bonus a pic from last night of our household, minus myself and all our animals.

The Grandbaby's quilt

I've always really liked the rail fence quilt pattern for baby and children's quilts.  I made them for my girls and one of my nieces and since I was given free reign over design choice for the grandbaby, I made the rail fence for her, too.

It's high quality quilt fabric and this quilt has already been washed a great number of times and it's holding up well.  You might not be able to tell, but I also embroidered her name in rose gold in one of the corners. 

Previous Make of McCalls 6500

I made this dress for the bear cub July 2013 and it was worn by all three of my girls.  It's one of the few clothing pieces that I made for the girls that I still have.  I am now passing it on to my younger granddaughter. 

Here is the nerdlet at 5 1/2.

And my adopted granddaughter at almost 1 year.

It has lost a little vibrancy from being washed ~12 billion times, but it is still pretty bright and colorful.

She loves the 'Where's Grandma?" game and I was wondering how to capture that smile with the camera.  Apparently, the camera is big enough to play where's grandma.  I didn't get the full on belly giggles, but I still got smiles and chuckles.