Belated Monday Thanksgiving

I started writing this before last Monday, but I forgot to post it! This week has been crazy!

11. Like-minded friends. Whether they're lending a patient and listening ear to whatever tirade I happen to be on, helping me clean my house when I'm in over my head, talking sense and reason into me when I've lost perspective, praying for me and mine when I ask (sometimes even when I don't), understanding me and interpreting some of my oddities into more endearing traits, or attending weird late night movie events with me...just to see something we like together...even if it's not the "grown-up" thing to do. I couldn't make it through life without them, and I wouldn't be the person I am today had our paths not crossed. :breaks into a chorus of I Have Been Changed for Good:

12. My creativity. Only just within the last five years or so have I been able to actually call myself an artist. I'm grateful for the mind God gave me, and for the way in which I interpret the world around me. I'm also becoming more appreciative of the ability He's giving me to communicate with and through artistic means.

13. Sleep. I love to sleep. I wish sometimes I didn't. I try not to think about how much life I'm wasting by sleeping. But I really do think I usually make up for it in waking hours. I keep pretty busy. But there is nothing greater than crawling into my big fluffy bed, laying on my big fluffy pillow, and drifting off to sleep. MMmmmmm. Sounds amazing.

14. My hubby loves to sleep. If you've got to sleep through life, might as well be sleeping through it with the one you love, right? ;)

15. My nose ring. Even though it hurt like a beast this time around (more the after than the actual piercing bit), I have missed it so, and am so grateful to have it back!

16. Wicked. Best. Musical. EVER! Can't wait to see it again someday! I'm hoping that'll be sooner rather than later.

17. Peanut butter fudge. By happy circumstance, I recently found a truck stop gas station that carried fudge. And peanut butter fudge to boot! When I was in college, one of the girls on my hall had a grandmother who sent her some peanut butter fudge. For reasons unbeknownst to me, she was unselfish enough to share some with me...and my life will never be the same. I have tried in vain to find the recipe to that fudge...but every time I pass a fudge shoppe of any kind, I have to try their peanut butter fudge...just in case it's like that girl's grandma's :)

18. Laughing. Laughing a lot. Particularly at silly things. Silly things like this. Hyperbole and a Half is hilarious. Sometimes it has crude language, but if you can overlook that, it's just plain funny.

19. Creation. I'm grateful for the moon, the stars, the sun, the rain, the great big Texas sky, the ocean, sand between my toes, the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and the body to be able to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, and experience it all with. I am, however, still stumped as to why God created the mosquito. I'm wondering if they served a higher purpose before the fall, or if they were invented as a direct result of it...
(there is one of those hovering about me; I'm sure to wake up covered in welts if I don't succeed in squashing it soon)

20. A clean home. To be more grateful, I should be thankful to have a home at all, regardless of its state, but my OCD really appreciates a clean house. I am hoping desperately to find a sliver of a clean home underneath this poor, neglected house tomorrow. In the meantime, however, I am exceptionally grateful to have my house...and all the things that make it my home.