Ten Things of Thankful

It is thankful time! In case you haven't heard, there is a blog hop hosted by Kristi of Thankful Me who opens the link to the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop each Friday. It stays open until Tuesday. Click here to read more about how simple she makes it for people to join the other bloggers in this thankful sphere. Even if you have had a week that was filled with some unpleasant events, with a little bit of meditating, pondering or whatever you call it, you may be able to see the bright side. It is worth giving it a try. It beats the alternative. 

1. As you may remember from reading some of my TToT posts this year, we made some changes to our home. We had a new roof put on first and later new siding and finally had the house painted. This week the house survived a sudden wind storm that hit amidst lightning and thunder and heavy rain. A wind burst struck our big maple tree which is kitty-corner across the driveway from our house. Two very large branches high up in the tree broke off and and took a nosedive to the ground on the side of the tree away from our house.

Wind damaged maple tree that has two
broken branches, one of which is
appears to be upside down and the
 other one is on the ground with
 only part of it visible at the bottom
 left corner of the photo

2. The vehicles survived the storm. Had the branches from the tree fallen on the opposite side of the tree, there would have been a good chance they would  have hit at least one of our vehicles.

3. If the branches had spiraled as they fell, they possibly would have landed on the driveway causing us to do a a bit of cross-country driving around the other side of our house. In other words, we would be driving over an uneven surface of vegetation and sod which received a lot of heavy rain during and after the storm. Think muddy and slippery.

4. Facebook groups where one can pose a question or a concern can often be quite helpful. In giving consideration to the amount of “stuff” we have that now qualifies as junk, I wanted to know if there was anyone who could recommended a junk dealer in our area. Thanks to the quick responses, I was able to very quickly contact someone and arrange for a pickup time this coming week.

5. When the fluorescent bulb in a high ceiling fixture burned out, a friend and her husband came to put the bulb in for us. High ladders are something that neither one of us feel safe in using anymore. Unfortunately the new bulb didn’t light up, but we now know that what we need is a new fixture.

6. My husband and I went to see the new movie, Yesterday, this week and then went out to eat afterward. Fun date.

7. It was nice to be able to return home after the date. Seriously, it really was. When we started the car and began driving home, we realized that although the car was running, there were no lights on the dashboard. We did have headlights and turn signals working, but no way to see how fast we were driving.  We pulled into a parking lot and tried to turn off the car. The only way we were able to turn off the car was to do a hard press (or press and hold) on the on/off button. We tried several times to turn on the car, but got the same results of no lights on the dashboard. Since it wasn’t dark yet, we decided to drive home. (Any place that we could have taken the car to be serviced was closed by then.) We made it home  and got the car turned off. This morning when I went out turn on the car, it was functioning perfectly normally. I was able to schedule an appointment for this coming Monday to have it checked out.

8. I am thankful for strength beyond my own. Sometimes when it becomes apparent that I lack the ability to handle a task, I will call upon my husband to come to my aid and he will know the right tool, or the right way to do something that needs to be done. There are other times when a certain job is a little easier for me to do for one reason or another, but then it proves problematic. When I am already in the middle of doing a task and it requires that it be finished, but I am unable to go forward with it because of my lack of physical strength, then praying is what I do, and very specific praying in which I explain what it is I am trying to do and why I think it needs to be done and giving a thankful prayer after my prayer has been answered. There are other instances when I pray for inspiration or ideas as to how to solve a problem and an idea will come enabling me to complete a task by using some kind of substance that normally would not be used that way. 

9. It was fun discovering some photos this week that were taken years ago. . .and they were here all along, and most likely it was me who stored them along with some old slides. I wished I had remembered they were there when I was organizing all the photos recently, but then again, I would have missed the excitement and the joy of rediscovering these memories.

This photo of our little puppy
makes me laugh. My dark pants
blend in with the gravel and makes
me look only half there, suspended
midair above the puppy.

10. I am thankful that our bodies were created in a way that enables us to be able to smile and to see the smiles of others. What a dismal world this would be without smiles.