blessings galore

It is so cold tonight, all over the East Coast and beyond. Gonna be in the 20s here, but that's like a day at the Equator compared to places up North. Trying not to think of the people who are out in this tonight.....I can't even imagine. The handy-dandy TV weatherman is saying it'll be Charleston's coldest temperatures of the last 20 years!

All 3 of my boys were asleep by 9:30. I got to thinking about how cold it already is, and what it's gonna be later, and decided to put extra blankets on everyone. Thank goodness for a mother in law who crochets--we've got afghans all over this house! Then, it was time for a nice HOT soaking bath for me, and a few minutes to just let my mind wander.........

I kept coming back, though, to thoughts from the last few days--just random stuff, mostly sweet and happy stuff, and thinking of how blessed we are. No big, amazing events have happened, just the small day-to-day stuff that memories are made of.

~I had a lunch date with Mr. Literal today. I love those, absolutely love them. He was my companion all day long at school, since he had the day off but I didn't. We went to Quizno's for subs and just chatted while we ate. He's so incredibly grown up sometimes, just looking at this little man sitting across from me is amazing.

~Last night, at choir practice, Energizer sat in my lap for about 20 minutes, and sang along with us. He's got great pitch (comes by it naturally, I suppose) so he picked up on the tune quickly and was jumping right in for the words "Glory, glory hallelujah" which repeated over and over. He looked so happy, so "in the moment", which made me feel that way too.

~I had to drive both boys this morning, when normally we each take one so we can get to school faster, etc. As we left the driveway, I remembered it's trash pickup day and our trash can wasn't beside the street. I put the van in park, jumped out and moved the can to its spot. Drove on around the corner, and saw the garbage truck approaching. We were in a hurry, plenty of places to go, but I decided to take a 30 second pause and just pull over to let the kids watch the truck pick up the can and dump it. They loved it, thought it was so cool, and it struck me that I don't think they'd ever actually seen that before. And so what if I was 30 seconds later getting to school?

~Even more elementally, more basic........we have a home tonight, when more and more people lose theirs every day. Our home has heat, and (so far) the heater is winning the battle to keep us warm tonight. We've got plenty to eat, too much in fact, but despite that fact, I'm managing to eat better this week and actually have lost 2.5 lbs already!

So maybe I sound preachy, or too saccharine-sweet, but that's my mood tonight--I'm dwelling on the good stuff, appreciating our health, prosperity and safety AND the 4 day weekend from school that's coming up! Now, if I could just figure out a way to be out of school on Tuesday too......