reasons to love monday, Thanksgiving edition

Amanda, Allison and Ashley Hedden with the Gant Girls... Sarabeth, Jamie and Angie
(picture snagged from Angie's facebook)

Jamie, Jorjann, Sarabeth and (I think that's a Nelken girl) dancing at Ashley's wedding.

These girls are in such high demand as flower girls that they ought to charge for it!

Yesterday I talked about what makes me happy... those three pictures... and the others that Angie posted yesterday... just warm my heart in away that I can't even articulate. I couldn't love those girls more if they were my own... and I love how much OTHERS love them too. They're just a joy to be around 99% of the time.

There are so many reasons to love Monday this week...
1. It's a short week, praise the Lord and pass the turkey!
2. The boss is mostly out of the office this week and Kevin's on vacay so it's an Estro-fest at the office this week. The down side is that I will have to kill spiders myself.
3. Austin is out of school all week and planning to work around the property with Morrie. It's good for him to learn how to do these things. He's learning valuable job skills and that's a very good thing.
4. My aunt and uncle have offered to help pay for the surgery. I will need to talk to them about what's involved... see if I can get it scheduled again... I'm still ridiculously apprehensive but I was more apprehensive about NOT doing it. I'm having a lot of stomach cramps and some other unpleasant symptoms that are hard to ignore.
5. I'm still on the fence about Thanksgiving. Pop gave me some gas money to help with the cost of traveling but honestly... more than anything... it's the fear of driving that far, dealing with the kind of pain I have sitting in the drivers seat for two hours. My piriformis syndrome is wickedly painful, even just driving the very short drive to work. It feels like I'm sitting on a knife. Not to mention the other stuff that needs surgery... hard to sit. And still with the stomach cramps... I just want a four day weekend where I'm not in pain. But I don't want to disappoint anyone. Quite a conundrum. Either way, I'm excited for a four day weekend.
6. Austin and I had a great weekend... he's doing such a great job of stepping up, doing the things that I can't do and he is starting to develop that work ethic that I'm so proud to see in his brothers.
7. There's a pink tree in my window. We may not have decked the halls but we decked the windows!
8. This year has taken us through a lot of changes that we weren't prepared to make... but for now, at this moment, we are at peace. Life is good.


Hope you have a few reasons to love Monday too!