#300 this blog

I know I’ve used this blog as a thankful item before.  But it’s the one I want to end on.

One year ago, I wanted to blog again.  Only I wanted it to be about something specific.  And for a predetermined length of time.  And somehow I got the idea around Thanksgiving of last year that I would keep a thankful blog.  And post one thing a day that I was thankful for – all the way for one year.

This is my last post.  Obviously, since it’s only #300, I didn’t quite get one a day.  But on almost all of those skipped days it was because I was avoiding the computer.  Not because there was nothing to be thankful for.

I couldn’t decide a year ago whether to make this a “crap that makes me angry” blog or a thankful blog. This makes me groan and chuckle now when I think about it.  If I’d gone the other way…man, would I have had plenty of material to work with.  This has, without a doubt, been the worst year of my life.  But my life is pretty damn great, so that’s not saying much.  I had no idea when I started this blog a year ago that my extended family would be swathed in such sadness a year later.  A death of a loved one, preceded by a long and difficult illness, and the estrangement and hurtful actions of another one, wrapped up in a scary mental illness.  It’s all been A. Lot.

But.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Even with this past year, I am sitting here today in a really good place.  Extremely happy with my kids and husband.  Excited about a new writing career path.  Surrounded by a plethora of really great friends.  And at peace with my extended family, celebrating the togetherness that I have with my dad and my siblings.

It’s a damn good life.

But I really do believe that this blog has helped me to realize that.  I always thought gratitude journals were a little cliched and cheesy and not for me. I was wrong. I think forcing myself to search for some good in every day has been instrumental in maintaining some happiness on my part.  And so, I am thankful.  Thankful I started this blog.  Thankful I kept it up.  And thankful that the year is over and I can move on to other things.

Thanks for reading.

~~

If you know me in real life…I am finally (and reluctantly) on facebook, as of 24 hours ago.  So go find me there.  And I feel pretty sure I will start up another blog sometime in 2010.  Stay tuned for details.    If you don’t know me in real life, lucky you.  And thanks for reading this anyway.

#299 a really nice Thanksgiving

About 4-5 years ago, I started cooking Thanksgiving dinner at my house.  My family, in-laws, and streams of friends are usually here to help us celebrate.  I really like that tradition.  I like having friends at my Thanksgiving table and not just family.  It feels less forced, for some reason.

I’m very thankful I started doing that a few years ago, so that this Thanksgiving wouldn’t have been my first.  We had decided a month or so ago that we’d go south and do Thanksgiving at my grandmother’s.  And when she passed away, we decided to just do it at my dad’s.  Because my sister had already asked off from work for the week.  And it would be a good chance to go through some stuff in her house.  Etc.

Part of me was a little sad that there would be no Thanksgiving at my house.  None of my friends present.  But overall, I thought it was probably a good idea for this year.

We had the nicest Thanksgiving imaginable.  It was a very slow and warm day.  Football, video games, crunching in leaves.  Lots of help in the kitchen for me.  A really yummy meal.  And I didn’t wash a single dish.

I can’t explain why it was so nice.  It shouldn’t have been.  But I think maybe it was because we all felt at peace that life was marching on, and that my family was going to find a new happy normal after all the crap we’d waded through this year.  I love spending time with my brother and sister and my dad.  And we all had a fun time – watching movies, talking, playing games.  It was just very nice.

I’m ever so thankful that this first holiday was a nice one.

#298 that we went through the house

My sister and I spent two long days going through my grandmother’s house.  My dad and a friend had already done a lot of work there, sorting and packing, etc.  But we were walking through to pull out things we wanted to keep and mark other things with where they should go.  Lots of sorting and resorting.  Packing and repacking.  We got through the whole house, really.  Just a few random corners that say, “Don’t touch”, until I can get back up there.

It’s more than depressing to walk through someone’s entire life collection – where they lived for 60 years – and see index cards taped to doors saying, “Box up everything here for Goodwill.”   Such a lesson on living with less.  It’s all just stuff that we don’t need in the end.

Many lovely treasures to be discovered though.  Love letters to my grandmother from her husband.  My sister’s birth announcement.  My own wedding invitation.  She saved every single correspondence between us.  I found stacks of letters I wrote her in college.  And I’m so glad I did.  Pictures of my kids stuck in every corner.  Letters to us from her, that were never sent.  Love.  Love.   Love.  Lots of love in that house.  It’s a powerful thing to lose someone special and realize they have left so much love behind for me.  She really loved us a lot.  And that feels warm.

I spent this morning rifling through checks she wrote in 1968.  (Did I mention she saved everything?)  It’s really enjoyable to look through all her old accounting books and whatnot and get a sense of who she was before I knew her.  She was a really remarkable lady.

Anyway, I’m glad we got it mostly done.  The house cleaner will spend a few weeks boxing up what we’ve left behind and then we’ll do one more sweep next month and it should be emptied out.  Very sad.  But I’m so thankful it’s mostly done.

#297 a completed to do list

I love lists.  And I love marking through every single item on a list.  It’s like taking a deep breath and exhaling with a sigh.

I just loaded up 6 bags of groceries into my brother’s car, so he could cart them south.  The kids and Husband and I are following later tonight, with the van loaded down with luggage and toys and rabbits.

Suitcases are packed and loaded.  Meals are planned.  Ingredients purchased.  Packed with recipes and on their way.  I have one thing left to do – and that is feed the kids some dinner and drive them to gymnastics/karate.  And then we are on our way south for Thanksgiving.

Whew.

#296 Rivers, Roads, and Rails board game

I bought this a while back from the local book store.  Put it in the game closet.  And it sat there, unplayed, until last week when 6 discovered it.

“Mommy?  Is this a new game?!”

Every day, since he found it, we’ve played this game.  For hours.  Seriously – at least 3 hours each day total.  I stopped asking them to pick it up a few days ago and it just lives now on our living room rug.

It’s the neatest building/matching game.  We all 5 love it.  We play with the rules sometimes…but mostly the kids just play with the tiles and build their own paths, etc.

Holidays are approaching, so I thought I would share.  I’m glad I made that purchase!

#295 Chlorine-scented kids

Loved smelling their little heads when I tucked them in tonight.  After all day at the water park, they smelled like Fun.  And their eyes were closing from the fill of it.

#294 Great Wolf Lodge

I know these are scattered all over the country.  If you’ve never been to one, Go.  Loads of fun it is.

We are headed there today.  The kids are excited.  It’s always nice to get away for a day or two.

Especially when grandparents are paying!

#293 good news from Guatemala

The word on the internet street today is that Guatemala has announced they are reopening international adoptions.  They still haven’t laid out what the process will be exactly – just that it will be different.  And it’s my understanding that the U.S. would have to choose to participate.  Which they may not.  But all this is good news.

We (okay, maybe just me) are not finished growing our family.  I really wanted to add a fourth child to our mix about the time that the shutdown was imminent.  But did not want to get caught up in that mess.  So we waited.  And then I spent some time researching other options.  None of which would work for our family.  So it fell back to “we’ll just wait and see when Guatemala reopens and go from there.”

I don’t think the next two years will be the best time to take on the adoption of another child.  But still.  I can’t help but be selfishly thankful that adopting again from Guatemala looks a little closer to happening today than it did yesterday.

#292 that I don’t read the jackets

I am going to the library like every other day lately, to swap out stacks of books for other stacks of books because the stingy library will only let me have 35 at a time and 35 is just a tease.

Anyway.

Among other things, I’m trying to furiously read all the books that the faculty of my new degree place have written before I go to soak up their wisdom in January.  And so, while I’m checking out stacks of books by a particular author, I’m just opening them at will and diving into the book.  Without knowing anything at all about it.

And I’m so glad.  Because I sat down tonight to read My Louisiana Sky by Kimberly Willis Holt and was completely blown away.  The main character’s voice is rich and powerful.  The setting is vivid and cozy.  And I was just completely sucked in to what I assumed was going to be a “coming of age” summer type book.  But midway into the story, someone dies.  It literally took my breath away.  And I was crying buckets of tears on my bed, listening to the kids giggling in theirs on the baby monitor.

Like I didn’t believe it.  And I was pissed off.  And thought, ‘Why didn’t someone tell me??’ and then flipped to the inside jacket blurb and the back blurb.  And there it was.  Written all over the place.  Like everyone else who picks up this great book will know it’s about a death.  But not me.  Because I just started reading without reading the jacket at all.

And I’m so glad.  Sometimes the shock of something can suck you even further into the character’s own grief and loss.  I hardly ever read jackets or back cover blurbs.  For this very reason.  I prefer to just soak it up on my own with no expectations.

 

My search for the amazon link I added above led me to realize there was a movie made about this book.  Which I’m sure the rest of the world has seen – except for me.  And I’m so glad about that too.  I have a rule that I never see movies based on books I’ve read and loved.  Never.  Don’t get me started on that.

#291 Thursdays

Thursdays are sometimes my favorite day of the week.  Husband doesn’t teach on Thursdays.  And it’s supposed to be my “day off” of sorts.  It’s rarely a real day off.  I’m either at the bank in meetings or working in 5′s classroom in the afternoons.  BUT – on those mornings I usually get an hour to myself before I run errands or do whatever I need to do.  I am not the one getting the little people fed and watered and clothed and whatnot.

It’s nice to start the day that way.