Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another list of the massive amount of things I have to be grateful for.

I am grateful for kids that get being grateful.  They have always been good with the words, but we did a Thanksgiving gratitude tree and they were eager to offer the things they were thankful for to put on the tree and came up with a lot of ideas and quickly.

I am grateful for the new traditions that Q and I have added to our little family.  We didn't have many traditions growing up and I love that we will have our own to share with our kids.  Some of the ones we have added are a separate non-Thanksgiving day Thanksgiving meal with just the immediate family and a few invites with no pressure.  Another is wrapping the books to open along with the advent calendar each day in December up until Christmas.  We have done both of these for three or four years now and they make the holidays more enjoyable.

I am grateful for crockpots and pressure cookers.  I am especially grateful that when my mother bought me a new crockpot because my older one required me to jiggle the cord to get it to work that the two crocks from the prior one fit not perfectly, but well enough, to work in the newer one.

I am grateful for customers that ooze enthusiasm over the quilts I make, especially when it is unexpected or a customer that is normally difficult.

I am grateful once again for the emergency 24-7 clinic near my home and this time I am grateful for shots of antibiotics, pain killers, and steroids because I ended up there once again with strep again, this time seemingly much worse and they took care of me right away and I felt better within 30 minutes.

I am grateful for all the good and kind people in my life that remind me that life is not as bad as it seems to be getting on the news and Internet.

I am grateful for all the people that adopt older children and children with disabilities here and abroad and especially those that continue to allow us to view their lives after the adoption as I feel like I'm missing out when some of them disappear after they bring the child home.  I am also grateful for those parents that love their children so much that after realizing that the adopted child would be better off somewhere else make sure that those children go to a home that is better and don't just try to dump them somewhere.

I am grateful for those not in the disability community that accept and welcome our children that do have disabilities and am especially grateful for the parents that bring up their typically developing children with the same attitude.

I am grateful that my daughters all show a love of reading and being read to.  I was worried about the nerdlet because she was really resisting learning sight words and to sound words out, but when I go to change her bed sheets, I am still finding a massive amount of books in her bed that I need to remove before I can do so.

I am grateful for a full pantry and refrigerator.

I am grateful that my girls are full of energy.  I love to watch them enjoy running and moving.  I love that we have regular dancing together and that they really get into it (though mostly the bear cub and Q and I dance while Darth Baby and the nerdlet run and spin).  The fact that none of them really stop are probably the reason that I am not 300 pounds or more.  I have a low metabolism and am within 10 pounds of what I weighed my first pregnancy and while I am still a big girl, I have never been this close to having a stable weight.

Quick(ish) Sweater

Today when it is cold and all of the bear cub's sweaters are either in the wash or drying, I am grateful for being able to sew a sweater in a few hours so that she can wear one to school.

Yes, it is another Ottobre 6-2011-3.  It's actually a little big for the bear cub as I cut it out to fit the nerdlet.  This is actually version 7.

Here is version 6.  Version 6 was another one that was made from another sweater so I didn't bother to add cuffs to the arms.

I actually still need to make quite a few as I gave away the smaller 3 that I made last year since they outgrew them.

Tomatoes

I am grateful that GMO tomatoes did not do well and are no longer around.

Smart Kids

I am grateful for kids that are clever enough to try to drive me nuts.

Case 1:  The nerdlet doesn't like the forced reading of library books so she checks out books with very few to no words when checking books out at school.

Case 2:  The bear cub wants to sit in the chair that the nerdlet is currently occupying.  She knows that the nerdlet always helps her.  She then takes her bouncy horse and shoves its head under the ottoman and then starts complaining about it.  When the nerdlet jumps out of the chair to help her, the bear cub jumps in and starts laughing.

Case 3:  Darth Baby has gotten very good about quietly opening packages of food in the pantry since she has figured out that noise is usually what gives her away.

There antics never fail to make me smile even when I have to correct their behavior.  I love these girls.

Grateful

There are so many things that I am grateful for:

I am grateful that the bear cub is not only accepted at school, but welcomed and celebrated (at least so far).  When we go, everyone knows her.  She is in the pre-K class and yet everyone, teachers and students all the way up to 5th grade know her and greet her as we go through the halls.  It's great to me to hear teachers making 'sh' sounds at their kids as they yell out to her.

I am grateful that Target and Toys R Us price match amazon.com.  I don't have a smart phone so it makes it a little more difficult for me, but it's great nonetheless.

I am grateful for having such a huge and wonderful family.

I am grateful for old photographs.  I can't tell you how it thrills me to see pictures of my grandmother and her brother when they were younger or all of my mom's many brothers and sisters.

I'm grateful for having developed self-acceptance.  I'm glad to not be too conscious of how I much intrude or stick out and just go with things without worrying so much.  I only hope that my nerdletl comes to this sooner and I am glad that the bear cub and Darth Baby do not struggle with this.

I am grateful that while Q is most definitely a cat person that he accepts my desire for dogs and even helps me care for them - even if it is the middle of the night and requires a trudge downstairs to let them out and in again.

I am grateful for so many beginning reading books that rhyme.  I had a really hard time giving up picture books and moving on to chapter books when I was in elementary school (well after I was reading at a 12th grade level) and I constantly remember why this was as I read to my girls.

I am grateful that my younger sister is moving closer, although I know she is not.  I miss her terribly sometimes, and I imagine that I will drive the 10 hours each way a number of times a year to see her and her family.

I am grateful that we have a huge bookstore within walking distance.  I hear/read that many places not only do not have this but also are lacking a bookstore anywhere in their community.

I am grateful for my minivan.  I love our dinged up eyesore.  (I never claimed to be cool).

I am grateful for all the people that refuse to shop on Thanksgiving.  If everyone were to refuse, they wouldn't try it again.  I know that this is unrealistic in what seems like a culture of consumerism, but I am hopeful anyway.

My Beloved Aunt Connie

So I haven't been keeping up with my grateful posts this November like I have in the past.  This is because my mom's younger sister, my aunt who lived here in the area, passed away very unexpectedly. She went into the emergency room with abdominal pains and a cough, she was admitted and transferred to a larger hospital, and three weeks later she is gone.  She was a wonderful aunt and I am very grateful to have had her in my life.  I have so many wonderful memories of her and she is definitely a huge reason why I felt loved when I was younger.  I was very needing of affection when I was smaller and she was willing to hug and cuddle with me constantly while other relatives would get tired and push me away quickly.  While she was quick to offer her advice and criticism of everything, she meant it only to help and she was full of compassion and acceptance of the choices that people made.  She was constantly trying to be a better person and even took college courses into her senior years.  She was a truly beautiful person inside and out. She was smart and creative and never gave herself enough credit.  She was so loving and so loved and will be missed immensely by so many people.  I'm grateful for all the time I had with her and I'm especially grateful that she settled so close to where I ended up so that I got to spend so much time with her over the last decade and that she and my girls got to enjoy each other.

Superhero Movies

I am grateful that superhero movies are so popular and being made so often right now.  We watched the new Thor movie last night and I enjoyed it a lot.  It's not as engaging to me as the Iron Man series, but definitely watchable, though it could have used more Loki, in my opinion.  Q and I really like superhero movies and there definitely seems to be more being made well lately than in the past, or is that because time is moving so much faster now that I have three children?  Either way, I'm grateful for the opportunity to watch them.

I am also grateful that other people let me know when recipes they try are failures so that I don't have to try them myself.