I'm Thankful This Thursday

It's Thursday and I'm exhausted. It feels like this week has lasted a month.
I'm tired but I'm grateful for a cozy nest and a place to work and having 2/3 of my kids + all of my daughter-in-laws nearby. (There's only one).
Yesterday at work my grandmother's first cousin came in... I knew he was one of our customers but hadn't seen him in - probably never - but I heard someone say his name so I went and introduced myself and we had a lovely family reunion.
His wife mentioned my great-grandmother, who passed when I was seven. She said that Grandma was like a mother to her, the kindest women she ever met.
Having worked so hard on genealogy in the past year (although not as much in the past month) having those anecdotal connections with my ancestors is precious to me.
Everyone loves my Grandma and her sister, Aunt Bette. It stands to reason that they were raised by a special woman.
I'm so proud to descend from these ladies and I try to keep that in mind when I'm dealing with the frustrations in my way:

• pain (off the chain yesterday)
• customers who don't use consonants 
• customers who are trying to give you serial numbers for their car and instead of using the alpha-bravo alphabet so that you can understand what they're saying, they use words that could start with any letter: "a as in at, b as in bat, c as in cat". Ugh.
• when my favorite football team loses a big game
• and so on

BUT... when I look back in time by a year, the biggest frustrations I had then were so much bigger than anything I'm dealing with now. It's hard to complain, so I won't.
And when I look around me, there are so many dealing with so much worse... my friend Beth who is traveling from London to the States for her grandmother's funeral. Praying for traveling mercies and comfort for her.
Another friend being taken back to court by her demented, evil ex-husband who is determined to see her crumble. I can't even begin to imagine that kind of fear and frustration. I was fortunate in that my ex-husband never really interjected himself in our lives past divorce.
So... I play the "guess the consonants" game and most of the time I'm right and when I'm wrong, I apologize sweetly and blame our phone connection, not the other person's diction.
I've seen some beautifully answered prayers in our lives lately.
My friend Natalie, whose husband tragically ended his life by suicide seven years ago this month, has been in my prayers for the past several years, that God would send her a husband.... and God is faithful. Natalie got engaged over the holiday weekend.
It gives me hope. Not for a romantic "happily ever after" for me... but just that God is faithful to give us the desires of our heart, in His way and in His time.
In my life, I prayed that God would either bring into my life a partner for life or that He would change my mind about wanting one. He changed my mind. It's awesome to be in a place of peace.
I work the early schedule today which means I need to pull my hair back into a semi-professional looking ponytail and put on some war paint and find something decent to wear and get myself into gear.... maybe visit my good friends at Starbucks.... and find the energy to be good at what I do for five hours or so today... and then I can be back in the nest to rest.
I've ordered two books from Amazon and I'm hopeful they will come today.
I still haven't seen Les Miserables, maybe we'll  see it this weekend.
Even in the life of a single crazy cat lady, there are always things to look forward to.
I'm thankful this Thursday. Are you?
Love you all dearly and pray for you by name a lot of the time.
*hugs*