Monday, August 18, 2014

Thankful Things


Baby says hello to everyone.

I am thankful for every day that I get to carry this little one inside me. It's a gift, she's a gift.

I am grateful for my coffee in the morning, often with my best friend, my perfect-for-me husband.

Seeing a young hawk with its prey in our back yard the other day was really neat, too, with the kids and I crowding around our back door to get a better look. We were wildlife-starved at our old house, and we're obviously eating these encounters up.

The sun in the morning is a delight. Sometimes when I jog, I go at just the right time to see the sun hanging red above the treeline. Then I lope past these azalea bushes by the roadside, the ones that think it's time to bloom again. Heck, I don't mind! Large, floppy, violet blooms. Y'all go right on being season-confused, Azaleas! Love it.

I am glad for the time I had with the children last week, doing back to school preparations. Our new school has few requirements regarding uniforms, but wearing jeans or khakis is required, and no one really had any jeans. So, I took them out in small groups of 2 or 1 and we shopped and ran errands and had lunch together.

So grateful for the money to buy clothes for the children and for the opportunity for education, and for the fun time I had out with each of them.

I will say that my pregnant body has complained to me about that much walking and standing over the course of last week, but it was worth it, and I had a good nap yesterday that made me feel pretty ready to take on the week ahead.

On my mind lately are heavy things and happy things - the situation with ISIS in the Middle East has me praying, has me sad and concerned.

I am happy that we have precious friends who will daytrip to our house for a long lunch and longer conversation before driving the not-so-short road back to their house. That was Saturday. Good food and blessed fellowship. Oooh, on a light happy note, I made a Grapefruit-Pecan Cake. Oh my. Bliss in cake pan, is all I'm saying...

(Let me be more honest: EG and I made the cake...I did preliminary work and then oversaw her construction of the treat.)

Happy: being able to safely and freely go to church. And, being safe and free in general. Thanks be to God for all these things.

And today school started. It's a new school for us, of course, so we all have back-to-school nerves and this-is-all-new nerves. The kids will be at school most of two days a week and will work from home the other days. The school operates with a focus on the fine arts, which seems to be where most of the brains in this family lean, so I am excited to see where this new approach and focus might take the kids in their learning, direction, interests, and skills.

One of my favorite moments of the day is when we lie down in bed at night. Sometimes the days are so full that that is the first time I've been still enough to concentrate on feeling Baby. So I lie there and wait a bit, and am usually rewarded with a little baby-dancing on the inside. It's extra special to me this time around, partly because I felt this one move so much later that all my others. Then, most nights, I'm fast asleep about 12 seconds later...

1 comment:

  1. We are thankful we were able to do a day trip to see you guys!!! Can't wait to do it again soon and maybe make a weekend out of it!!! Love you!!

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