Gratitiude Nov. 11, 12, 13, 14

Gratitude. Let's see.  Today has been a physically, mentally, and emotionally overwhelming day. Sometimes life is so tough.

But I am grateful for the good things in my life:

*blue skies.  I love them and they help me to feel happy.  When it is cloudy for more than a day or two I start to feel tired and blue.  When I thought we would be going to Oregon for residency I told Lewis we would have to get one of those special lights for seasonal affective disorder (aka SAD) but turns out we landed in Sweet Home Alabama instead.  "Where the skies are so blue!"

*my kids' school.  I know that I go on and on about it sometimes, but I am so grateful for the school we ended up at.  I think you would be hard pressed to find many other schools in the country that are as diverse as our school and still perform as well.  There is racial, religious, and socioeconomic diversity but our wonderful (hard core) principal has created a culture of success and unity that I am so grateful for.  My kids have friends of every background, religion, and color. ( I will try to keep my anger about the new immigration law which is horrible and mean out of this post but Aiden had a show at school last week and it was hard to ignore the fact that Hispanic children no longer make up 1/3 of the students  like they did before the "law")

sweet sweet baby exploring (aka eating) leaves

* baby laughter.  Abs has really started laughing.  Tonight I was playing peek a boo with her and every time she would get startled, jump and then laugh so hard.  Try to be grumpy when a baby is laughing.  Not possible.  How can it be that she is 6 months old tomorrow?  6 months old is one of my favorite ages but this baby is already on the move so it's going way too fast.

Tonight she was rolling and rolling all over the place and ended up next to the dog.  They were just staring at each other.

* goodly parents.  My dad has been working on my mom and his life history (histories?) and I got to read it today.  I cried and cried.  I miss my mom so much.  If you knew her wasn't she the greatest?  She was truly one of God's most precious, righteous, kind women.  There isn't really a word good enough to describe my mom.  There isn't a word to describe how I miss her, how I long to hug her and touch her skin. I am working on focusing on the millions of good memories I have and letting go of the hard last few days because I know that isn't what she wants me to dwell on.  I am grateful for the times that I can feel her near me.  I know she was with me today and that she is proud of me.  My dad is an amazing person.  My grandpa and I were talking a couple of years ago and he said something about how my dad could never practice courtroom law because of his character and honesty.  My dad did such an incredible job taking care of my mom when she was sick.  I know that it took a lot of the stress off her and she told me so many times how grateful she was for him and his devotion to her.  I have been blessed by my parents and I am striving to be more like them every day.







Bonus shot of my awesome husband.  It's "no shave November" if you didn't know.  Yeah, he ran a half marathon this weekend.  Worked until 5:30pm, we picked him up and drove an hour and a half, ate dinner, jumped in the pool and got a little sleep, got up early, ran, and headed home right after to work all day Saturday.  What a champion.