Several days of Gratefulness all rolled in to a Saturday

Saturday November 16 brings forth several things to catch up on.   So we will be counting this post for several days.  

First thing in the morning.  Its a toss up. I'm not sure which was the best part of waking up.  Waking up next to THIS amazingly handsome man or a cup of THIS being served in a jug from Disney land with the seagulls on it saying Mine Mine Mine Mine... hehehe  Or maybe it was the kiss that came as he handed me my morning cup of coffee in bed.  I am thankful for the abundance of Love that my husband and I share for each other. I am thankful for simple things like him introducing me to a wonderful flavor of coffee just because he thought I would like it and now he makes sure I have it in the house. 

 

 

From there we move to item of the day number two.  A MASSIVE Garage Sale.  It had een planned for yesterday but due to weather, we have actually postponed it till next weekend.  This is a good thing because we went on with allowing people who came in to go a head and shop and then the other people who are planning to sell things also will be there next weekend, weather permitting. 

So, what am I thankful for here?  Abundance.  This si a yard sale involving things that are still around from my grandparents that I honestly thought went to others who needed them about 7 years ago, there is the stuff we hauled down here from the mountain when we moved back down the valley way too many years ago for it to still be there.  There are items from my daughter and her husband that have sat in storage also for several years, unused.  My 2nd daughter and her husband brought items that were sitting unused in their house.  My niece has items that she is unable to use at the moment as she is living in a very simple situation and those things are taking up space she does not have.  Add to all of that are some items that we were left with from a previous customer.   This has been the most amazing thing to look at all of these things, think of the history behind each item and then realize that someone else needs to use these things, but what I am most grateful for is that we have been so blessed as to have all of these items when we needed them.  

 

 

Move on through my day past the yard sale and we have to race up to the pick up station for my Bountiful Basket delivery.  I know that we are having a large group of family for Thanksgiving week so I knew I needed to stock up.  It turned out to be more than I really expected but it will be used and appreciated by all who eat it.

 Do you see the ginger hidden in on the table? 

Today will be a very busy day taking care of all of this as well as the things I already have in the fridge waiting to be taken care of as well.  After church, here I go. 

I am grateful for the abundance I have to provide for my family and make our times together "filling" in more ways than one. 

 

That leaves us with our 2nd Amendment Right which also brings fun and family time in with the training and practice that is required in my mind if you are going to participate. 

I don't have any photos of me shooting My new pistol because, ummmmm yeah, I'm not very good at it YET!!!  But I will be shortly.  I have a great teacher who will make sure I know what I need to know. 

 

My abundance is overwhelming.    

 

November 9th Quizzing

 

 

 

November 11 Veterans Day

My gratitude knows no bounds.  

November 8th of gratitude

That I can Read. 

thank you to the Robert Brewer .org for these facts.  I would imagine that they are true.  I began to realize how some people felt about reading when I was a young public school teacher and found out how many of my fellow elementary school teachers HATED reading and never picked up a book to read for enjoyment and barely read their teachers manuals that they were "teaching" children to read from.  I was stunned. 

When I got to the square on this chart that says the more a child reads, the likelier they are able to understand the emotions of others began to make me think and to really look around at people.  I believe that this statement is a true one as well. 

Therefore, the last one  Reading one hour per day I your chosen field will make you an international expert in 7 years.  Wow!!  This is an amazing statement and truly challenges me to choose a subject.
See you this time next year to see where my journey is taking me.

November7th Gods Provision

Yes, last year this is what I wrote on my gratefulness for Gods Provision.  I was grateful that I had a bed, roof, food and clothing.  While I am still thankful for those things as those are the things necessary to life, I can also say I am abundantly blessed. 

We have begun to really look around us and see that we have so many things that should be in the hands of other people who actually need them.  My task is to get those many things into the hands of those who need them more than I. 

I also know that I will not have peace about me until those things are gone.  Clutter is very unpeaceful if you didn't know.  I know that decluttering for me is going to take months.  The changes we have started here at the store have just gone to show me how much I have "hung on to" that I need to let go of but it is still going to take a lot of time!!!  Maybe I will update as I go. 

November 6. Opposites Attract

I am grateful that opposites attract.
When couples get together many times its because of some traits in the other person that seems fun and quirky.   After a period of time, those same quirks may become irksome as they are DIFFERENT...  yes, ma'am those were the things that attracted you in the first place... don't forget that. 
So today, after more than 20 years of marriage its still good to remember the early days.
Last night we had enchiladas and peach cobbler for dinner.  If I had had any idea that this was going to happen I would have taken pictures. 
Let us start by explaining that I am much more of a "food not touching" kind of person.  I don't like a lot of additions to my food such as sauces and such.  Been a "thing" our whole marriage.  So, when my loving husband was torn by the question, "do I want more enchiladas, or am I ready for peach cobbler?" I should have seen it coming.  hahahaha

Before I knew it he had his bowl of peach cobbler and was spooning Old El Paso Mild Red Enchilada Sauce over it.   The look of excitement on his face as he ate it was like a kid in a candy store. 

My question is,  does that count as an extra helping of dinner, or is it still dessert?  

November 5th The Ability To Read

Do you ever wonder about how things we take for granted came to be?  Honestly, who came up with putting symbols together in ways that mean words that you don't have to be in the same room with a person to hear and understand?   And then, they took other symbols and put THEM together to be able to count things, and adding and subtracting was born.  I know people who choose not to read, unless it is mandatory in some way.  I cant imagine. 

When I was teaching school, that was one of the biggest things I tried to impress upon my students who struggled with learning.  The key to life is learning to read. If you cant read you have to rely on other people to be conveniently close to help you learn new tasks or remember old ones.  BUT!!! if you can read, and want to learn something new at 2 am,  you can teach it to yourself.  You don't have to wake someone in the house up. 

Reading is one of the best things in life as far as I am concerned and I am grateful that I function on that side of my brain. 

Grateful for the federal government the other end.

Yes, I am still a year later grateful to the federal government.  Yes, go back and read this one and you will begin to understand why.

However, a lot has changed in the last year. Last year, I was writing about the beginning of my husband's career... and this year,  I am writing about the end of that same career.  And the funny thing is, we had been considering when he should retire.  Should it be September.. which would make it a full 25 years, or January when it would be better financially... but in the end, due to an opportunity that came our way at just the right moment, it was August.  this was the retirement party.  The blanket ad flowers were presented to ME.. yes

Happy Retirement to US!!!!! 

More on that later.

 

Gratitude catch up day 3

Just a short gratitude at this point, still thinking on this one.  Yes, I am still grateful that God planted me here in sunny Southern NM.  But, mostly I do still love where I live.  I love that we live in a place where we can operate our new business and see it as a very growing possibility. 

And every day, I get to see this..... How wonderful is that? 

 

Gratitude Catch up. Day 2

The weekend was pretty hectic, ( as usual I know)  This is kind of funny to me, but I find myself debating how to do this task this year.  Do I just go through all of the things I really truly AM thankful for?  Or do I go through my previous lists and make sure  dot repeat myself.  I am still unclear of what to think here. 

But in the mean time,  I will just continue.  Looking back at last years blog, on day two I was thankful for my family of origin.  I went back and reread that post and can say I am STILL thankful for my family of origin.  But this year I want especially to say that I am thankful for my two grandmothers specifically.    I am grateful for the legacy each of them very unknowingly passed down to not only me, but to my daughters. 
My paternal grandmother,  Myrtle,  was born in Tennessee in the late 1800s  Lets see, lets work this through, my dad was born in 1933 when she was 40.  So if you do the subtraction, she was born around 1893.   She was a school teacher in one of the local community schools when she was just a young woman.  The legacy that she passed down through her children lead to many school teachers in her descendants, including myself, and both of my daughters,  My younger daughter finished her teaching degree in May and got her first official job as a 4th grade teacher.  She has worked with children most of her teen years and to this point.  Her older sister has also worked with children for most of her adult life.  She now has 2 children that she is very diligently teaching them every day as well as continuing her own education. 

My maternal Grandmother, Bessie, is the grandmother I THOUGHT I knew best, as I grew up near her, but in the last couple of years I have found out how much no one really realized about her. She was born in a very small mountain community in Southern New Mexico in 1912. She was an athlete during an era that most women were not.  She played basketball on her high school team and "lettered" 5 years in a row and was team captain for either 3 or 4 years.   She was the consummate "home maker"  a job that she took much more seriously than I had any idea. I have found out since that she was "taught"  Home Economics as a science, not as something to do in your spare time. 
Her siblings called her Dr. Tiny.  She studied and took care of her families medical needs during the early part of the previous century in an area of the country that medical care was sparse at best.   She was a spiritual woman.  She passed her faith on to both of her children and to all of their children and now it is falling on her great grands.    Through her lineage I see the grace and beauty in my daughters.  I see daughters who are dedicating themselves to being the best they can be for their families.  I can only begin to see where my oldest daughter is going to land in her time at the seminary, where she has the opportunity to learn the Art  AND SCIENCE of homemaking as her great grandmother knew. 

I end with the thought that I am grateful for the women in my life. 

New 30 days of gratitude. 2013

Starting off a day late as usual in my 30 days of Gratitude.  That doesn't mean that I am less grateful.  Sometimes it just means that I am too busy and should slow down and think.  In the last 12 months we have had some major changes. Our roller coaster ride began by being around for the birth of   two more nephews into the world in January and February, each named after his grandfather. Coasting a while brought us to May where on the same day we were there when another of the kiddos perservered through and got her college degree, and the very same day, saw the next in line graduate from high school.  Went to California again with the youngest to compete in his Bible Quizzing and watched him preach for reals at 16 years of age.  Still not sure where he is going in all of this but it is going to be an amazing ride. So, after those twists and drops,  we coasted again as  we began thinking about Jonathans retirement plans  What to do, what to do. September would give him 25 years in the Border Patrol, but financially January made more sense tax wise, we were told.  So, after all the thought over those two options, beginning of August,  we decided that  the obvious thing to do was make his retirement date should be August 10th so we could "retire" in the standard and much done way of purchasing a trucking company of our own, to do something we neither one knew absolutely anything about doing.  Hauling fuel.  And over the top of the big drop and loop d loop we have gone since we actually signed the papers to make it officially ours on September 21, 2013.  It was the beginning of HS&D Transport Services.   Since that day, things have been very busy,but the point of my whole story here is that I want to start my 30 days of gratitude with the biggest thing I am thankful for.  I could not have gotten through the last year, the last 3 years, the last 10 years or any other day of my life with out God.  I honestly don't know how people who don't have that get out of bed in the morning.  I am so very grateful to know that there is something bigger than me watching over me and guiding me.