Ten Things of Thankful

This last week was a good week and a busy week. It was kind of a week filled with this and that as some of our weeks seem to be. I'll share a few things for which I am thankful and link my post to Josie Two Shoes The Things of Thankful blog hop. I hope you will click on the link to see what she shared as well as what the other bloggers linked to her site. 

(Captions under photos are detailed to help those who are sight impaired to be able to better enjoy the photos.)

1. Celebrating 101 years! It is not every day that we get to share a birthday celebration with someone who has lived 101 years, but this week we went up to the nursing center to join my Mom on her special day. 

I love this cute little smile and the twinkle in her eyes. This is how I want to remember her. 

2. Bakeries. I'm thankful for the beautiful, delicious cakes made at bakeries that make my life easier.

This is a white cake with a raspberry-cream filling. There is a simple plastic Happy Birthday banner resting on top of the cake and three candles (101) right after the banner. Candles are not allowed to be lit in the nursing center. (Note to self: If there is a next birthday for her, use all dark colored candles to make it more visible for her to see them.) At first she wasn't interested in eating any cake, but later changed her mind and seemed to enjoy her piece.

3. Videos about family members. It is a common thing now for people to show memorial videos at special times in a person's life. These videos may be a collection of photos taken in earlier years and/or videos. A few times my Mom has seen a video that my husband made of her life a number of years ago, the last time being when she turned 100 years old. In part of the video, my husband included a time when he interviewed my Mom talking with one of her brothers. Mom and my uncle reflected on things they remembered of when they were growing up. Each time Mom sees this video, it is like she is seeing it for the first time. It seems to awaken her mind a bit and bring her a little joy. She smiled almost all the time she was watching it this year on her birthday. That made me smile watching her smile. To be able to see her stand, walk, and speak clearly without hesitation was a delight. I think making a video of our own lives is the least we can do for ourselves and our children, so when our memories begin to slip, we and they can watch ourselves as we once appeared.

I felt sad for one of the residents at the nursing center when she saw Mom in the video and some people gathered around to watch the video. She asked, "Where's my picture?" I thought to myself how wonderful it would be for each resident to have some kind of a video of themselves in their earlier years to watch on occasion.

4. Weather accommodating days. Our bags of wood pellets for our pellet stove were dwindling. Since my husband carries them bag by bag into a room where we store them until needed, a pallet of bags of wood pellets taxes his strength. Doing this task on a day when it wasn't raining and the weather was "just right" made it doable for him. Since I am no help at all with this job, I'm thankful when it isn't too daunting for my husband.

5. The power of reading aloud to oneself. In an effort to better retain what I read, in this case scriptures, I decided to start reading aloud as I study daily. Reading softly to myself works to keep me focused and to remember what I read. I won't be trying this around other people though. Has anyone else found this to be beneficial? 

I was curious if there were any studies that had been done about the advantages of people reading aloud to themselves. Click the link to learn more this study that was done at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario.

6. Easy goals with good benefits. After seeing a post on Facebook about having a Good Things jar. I decided to do this. At the end of the day I write on a slip of paper the date and something good that happened that day. I fold the slip and put it into a quart jar. Later on, perhaps at a family gathering if others in the family have jars filled with their own "good things," there could be a sharing time. Maybe I'll just pull slips out to read on a quiet New Year's eve. Who knows? For now, it is a jar being filled a day at a time. Has anyone else tried this?

7. The humor of a stress ball. It isn't like me to buy some little trinket at the checkout stand, but recently I bought something that was labeled a "stress ball." My guess was that by squeezing the ball one could relieve some of their stress by expending energy into the ball, but the way this worked for me was to make me laugh at the contortions of the face on the ball. Either way works.

This yellow stress ball is about 6" around.  There is a simple face consisting of two big heart-shaped eyes and a smiling open mouth of black and a row of white at the top of the mouth to represent the teeth. It is sort of dented in on the right side just below the eye from where I had squeezed the ball. (It was hard to get the camera in focus before the indentations popped out. It really did appear a lot funnier. LOL)

The rest are for you. Practice for your next post. 

8. I am thankful for___________________________________

9. I am thankful for___________________________________

10. I am thankful for__________________________________

Wishing you all a great week!