Ten Things of Thankful

Only ten, just ten, well okay, but that is a challenge!  It is time to consider all those things for which I am thankful.  That is a lot, so ten is all that this blog hop asks of participants.  I am linking my post up to Ten Things of Thankful.  Even if you don't write a post and link up, I hope you will find joy in considering those things for which you are grateful.  Remembering those things truly blesses one's life.

1.  I have been participating in the #LIGHTtheWORLD challenge this month.  Though I haven't written about it on my blog, I sometimes share something about it on Facebook.  Sometimes I think as individuals we fail to recognize the things that we are accomplishing already, until we see a challenge such as this.  Other times we realize that we may have become stuck in a rut basically doing the same kind of things and failing to branch out in new ways and develop new talents in helping others.  Pondering the concept to make a difference and considering what others are doing opens the doors of our minds to see more possibilities of what we can do.  I am thankful for the #LIGHTtheWORLD challenge.



2.  It has been wonderful to read of the ambitions of people of so many faiths desiring to be good and to do good.

3.  Christmas decorations including a beautiful fresh wreath given to me which I was able adorn it with some of my decorations.

Decorated tree at the nursing home

Wreath in my home

4.  Christmas music.

5.  Hospice workers and their desire to grant a wish to someone receiving hospice care.  This week as I walked by the room of a resident at the nursing home where my Mom resides, I saw two alpacas standing beside the bed of a woman who is on hospice.  That was quite an unusual sight to see in a nursing home.  I wanted so badly to take a photo, but didn't want to infringe on the woman's experience.

6.  Holiday dessert at nursing home for residents and their families.  I fixed the Lemon Lush dessert because for many years it was my Mom's favorite dessert to take to potlucks.

Apple cobbler and Lemon Lush dessert

7.  Christmas in the Woods with a buffet supper (chili, baked potatoes, cobbler, and hot cocoa) and music by the children and youth and singing carols by all.  People came dressed in clothes they might wear in the woods, i.e. flannel shirts, jeans, stocking caps, etc.  This was an activity my church had for members and their friends.

8.  Being able to stay safe and warm during some crazy weather this week.  Fortunately for us, it amounted to higher than normal winds, a little snow, freezing rain, and sleet just one day and evening, but 30 - 40 miles north of us, people had much more harrowing experiences.  Most airlines were unable to make their flights for about a day and many people were stuck at the airport unable to get to destinations even by land due to the icy streets.  Since we had some trees pruned the end of last month, we didn't have any branches break off during from the wind.  When I took our car in to be serviced the week before, I found out we needed new tires, so I went ahead and had that done.  I felt very grateful for having it done when I did, because one evening when I returned from visiting my Mom, I had to stop very suddenly when several cars in front of me on the freeway all came to screeching stops.  Apparently there had been a hailstorm in just one little section of the freeway and the hail had covered a stretch of the road catching everyone completely off guard.  I'm not sure how many cars had been hit, but it looked like there were about eight cars facing both directions in the southbound lanes where I was traveling.  The emergency vehicles hadn't even arrived yet.

9.  Thankful for a good report on my husband's skin biopsy.  One always hopes for the best, but a friend of his recently got a report on a skin biopsy and it will mean some surgery in his case.  We hope that things were caught in time, so that the surgery will do the job for his friend.

10. I'm thankful for my husband.  He has been out of his comfort zone a couple of times this week and he did it for me.  In the past month, I have been out of my comfort zone a little bit too, for him, but ended up really enjoying the experiences.