Ten Things of Thankful

This past week I took a week off from blogging.  I missed it, but just needed to take a break from some of the blog hops I participate in during the week.  This Ten Things of Thankful post will probably be kind of a condensed version, but here goes.

Monday I attended a viewing and gathering of family and friends of a dear friend of many years.  I'm thankful that she can once again be with her beloved husband who passed away six years ago.

This week I made four trips to the nursing home to visit with my Mom.  One of those visits entailed listening to a guest play the accordion for the residents, and one other visit included a Christmas Dessert social for the families and residents in Mom's portion of the nursing home.  I was touched by a beautiful act of kindness and thankfulness shown by the wife of one of the residents.  At the beginning of this last year she set a goal to make pieced quilts for each of the staff who work in the portion of the building where we were gathered.   She must have made 20 - 30 quilts.  They were each unique from the others.  Those who work at this nursing home truly are saints, as is this wonderful woman who made the quilts.  She is there most days to feed her husband his lunch too, since he is unable to do this himself.  Of course the staff would do that for him, and do when she is not there, but it does lighten their load when a family member can help out some of the times.

My husband and I both had a  couple of doctor appointments this week, just routine follow up type appointments.  I'm always thankful for knowledgeable doctors and equipment to determine the condition of our bodies.

My hope was to donate blood this last week, but due to a low hemoglobin count I wasn't able to do this.  I'll try it again in a couple of weeks.  If it is still low, I'll probably make an appointment with my doctor.  Donating blood is a good thing to do if one is able.  It is also one way to learn if you might have some health problem, such as being low in iron.

The women's group (Relief Society) from church held an activity Thursday night.  Due to the Christmas concerts, etc., not to mention the deluge of rain, it wasn't highly attended.  I went, but then again I live fairly close to the church building, and I don't have school concerts to attend.   I enjoyed the friendship and effort that had gone into making it an enjoyable evening.  I'm thankful for the dedication of others in providing activities that all can enjoy.

My husband helped me a little with learning how to use one of his cameras.  His cameras are much better than mine.  It was a quick little lesson inserted in the midst of a busy day.  I hope to become more proficient in using his camera.  I'm thankful for his patience.

Because of the continued heavy rains, I found that I was faced with driving through a portion of roadway the other day that had high water.  The road hadn't been closed yet.  Fortunately, there was a pickup behind me that saw my hesitancy, and passed me.  I watched to see where he drove and how high the water was on his wheels.  That gave me the confidence to give it a try.  There wasn't really a place to turn around.  The next day the road was closed.  I was thankful to discover this week that there is an online site that shows which roads have high water and which roads have been closed. I'm guessing there is one also that indicates where they have determined the ground to be too unstable along the roadways.  Some homes have slid down ground saturated steep hillsides.

For some reason, I've been having difficulty waking up enough when my alarm goes off in the morning.  I tend to turn it off, not even waking up enough to realize I need to get up or even remembering that it did ring.  Often my husband will already have gotten up, and he lets me sleep. He doesn't hear my alarm when he is elsewhere in the house.  Anyway, today he came in to see when I wanted to get up.  That's good!  However, it was over a half hour after I should have been at church.  I'm thankful that I can take things as they come.  For several months I have been singing with the choir at church.  This being the Sunday before Christmas, there was a special service with many different musical numbers, a couple of which that were done by the choir.  Fortunately, as it turned out, there were a couple of youth who filled in for me.  Yeah for the youth!  I'm sure their young voices are ever so much better than my "old as the hills" voice.  I'm glad they were there.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and if your week involves traveling, that you will all be safe.