Reasons to love... Wednesday/ Thankful Thursday

I know I've been away from the blogosphere over the long Christmas weekend... I've been busy making merry and having a holly jolly and all those things that the songs tell you to do. I've been interacting with the 3 dimensional people and I haven't stopped long enough to blog. Gosh. It's been so good to be with my family. I love them all so much more than I can even begin to tell you.

Now it's Monday   Wednesday (ok, now it's Thursday) and the last thing I want to do is go back to work. I love my job. I'm just tired and feel like I need a four day weekend to rebound from the one I just had. So... in the ten minutes I have left to blog... I'm going to try to find a few reasons to love Wednesday.

1. Amazon gift cards are amazing! I have "Killing Kennedy" and a book about one of my Mayflower ancestors on the way and still have a little money left.

2. Snagged from my sister-in-law... could there be any more authentic re-enactment of the "Reason for the Season?" Jamie, Jorjann and Sarabeth in their own Christmas pageant as the Angel of the Lord, Mary and Joseph. TOO CUTE!

3. Love. These. Girls. I got to spend a really sweet time with them on Christmas Eve where we laughed and ate and played games and just enjoyed being together. I love that I'm not that creepy aunt that they never get to see and are scared to be around and give forced hugs. You know what I'm talking about. Everyone has one of those. From the moment I knew Sarabeth was the long awaited "next girl born into our family" after me, I knew that I would love her with all of my heart... and I do. Getting a little mini-me in Jamie was the kind of over-flow blessing that God seems to do for us. For me.

4. Fashion. I wore this shirt on Thanksgiving (pictured here with Jamie) so I could get a little more wear out of it... and Jamie remembered when she saw me on Christmas Eve... "that's the shirt that you wore on Thanksgiving". Now... I know that I would probably notice a wardrobe repeat a month apart. I don't know that I would have at 8. She's amazing. She has such great fashion sense!

5. Like me... she loves taking pictures... she will grow up to be something fabulous and creative, I'm sure. She showed up on Christmas Eve with her sketch pad and spent the day drawing pictures... I helped. We had a great time. And then Cousin Tobye gave her a gift of colored pencils and she was so excited to go back and color in the Christmas tree we drew. LOVE her sweet spirit and the fact that she's turning 8 on Saturday. She's having a spend the night party with a few of her besties... so no birthday party pictures. *sigh* I knew it was bound to happen eventually... too old for the big birthday party... and Jamie is so sociable that it makes sense that she would be ready for that kind of party first. Gonna pick her out something fabulous on Amazon.com and get it on the way to her. Soon. Yesterday.

6. And this girl... who is thisclose to being taller than me, which is not saying a lot since I'm barely 5'2 but is saying a lot since she's ten. She got new earrings for Christmas - breakfast foods - now that she has pierced ears which was the reward for her overcoming her shyness. I also really love this next photo of her playing Scrabble with Pop. How many ten year olds do you know that have a vocabulary that is evolved to the point of being able to  beat an adult, mostly on her own?

She called in reinforcements when Pop played "inquire" but up to that point, she was flying solo.













Now that it's Thursday... I never managed to finish my entry yesterday... I'll switch gears and give you a few "thankful Thursday" points to ponder.

I didn't sleep at all last night. None. I got home from work yesterday around 2:30 and realized that the "Herbie Curbie" (our trash can) had not been pushed to the curb and it was overflowing with holiday trash that I had hauled back from the mountain house and therefore absolutely, positively HAD to be picked up when the trash guys came by. They normally come around 5pm so I knew we had time but I was the only one home and I had no idea when my mom and brother Bryan and Cody, etc, would be home to be able to push it to the curb so I bit the bullet and did it myself. And reminded myself why I don't normally do things like that. I think that I deal with pretty constant pain but when it gets worse, I remember that it could always be worse. I was up all night completely unable to find a comfortable spot.

I would mention that Cody brought me a cup of coffee at 8pm last night that I HAD to drink because even if your baby is 22, you still always enjoy their offerings, especially if they bring them from next door in the bitter cold and wind. He got a keurig machine for Christmas and wanted me to enjoy a cup of coffee. Which I did. At 8pm. And therefore did not sleep.

Which I'm sure had more to do with taking out the trash than drinking coffee or the fact that the dogs kept trying to eat poop out of the cats' litter box because for some reason our dogs love cat poop. It's disgusting but it does stretch out the time we can go in between cleaning out the litter box and I crack myself up by going all Soup Nazi on them and saying, "No POOP for you!". But I do try to be a responsible dog owner, which is a new role for me, whenever I catch them in the litter box, even if it's at late-thirty.

It's so bizarre. Tuesday night I wanted to watch "Joyful Noise" on HBO because there is a lovely lady who was in the movie that I know from a decade ago when we did Fiddler on the Roof and I barely made it through the first half hour of the movie before I fell asleep... and then last night I'm watching the hours tick by all night.

All of that leads me to the "thankful" part. I got up this morning, a miserable, sleep deprived mess and dragged myself to work. I contemplated calling in sick but I had several loose ends that I needed to wrap up today and I just very much didn't want to not be at work. I went in with the thought process that if I could just make it until midday, I could finish up the things I needed to finish and be of some assistance to my colleagues. I let my office manager know what my situation was (sleep deprivation, etc) and she encouraged me to go home. She was understanding, compassionate and... well, she said she'd need me more tomorrow than she did today, staffing-wise. Here's the thing: there was no guilt, no shame... I wasn't made to feel bad about feeling bad. I will never take that for granted. I really do love my job.

Nor will I ever take this....

for granted. At the end of the day, we all just need someone to cuddle up with to watch tv. Hope your holiday was/is wonderful too... and that you found Reasons to Love Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday... and that you are thankful this Thursday for all the good stuff in your life.

Love and hugs!