thankful 2011: sleep-deprived edition.

so our Thanksgiving celebrations officially ended yesterday when we left Wyoming after lunch in Montana with Mom and Dad. when we got to the airport and had finished all our teary goodbyes, i realized that i hadn't really said goodbye to my brother the night before, and he had already left for school by the time i finally woke up that morning, so just real quick right now i need to say i love you Goob and i miss you and thank you for letting me lounge around on the couches in the big room with you this weekend reading my books and watching you play zelda. it was awesome.

after a long day of car rides and airplanes and layovers and more airplanes and a shuttle bus and another car ride, we were welcomed home in the twee hours of this morning rather unceremoniously by our dark little house, complete with its plastic-covered floors and the smell of paint still lingering in the air. the good news is that all the people who might have been thinking about burglaring our house while we were out must have taken my disclaimer the other day to heart and the house was just as we left it, which is good because i had a little moment of silent anxiety on the drive home from the airport just thinking about what a mess it would be if our travel-weary selves all of a sudden had to deal with police and insurance and all those other things we would have to do ifwe had been burgled and i'm just so glad that we were able to just brush our teeth and fall into bed before having to wake up WAY too early to head back to those pesky 9-5 jobs of ours.

but before i am forced to fall headlong into the Christmas season, (which i am REEEEEELY excited about in case you were wondering, and YAY for all the time Christmas music stations on the radio!) i still have a few more thankful things to share.

86. that the only thing that Mark lost while elk hunting was his phone, instead of something important like his toes.
87. that Mark was going to get a new phone in December anyway, and that he can make due without a phone until then.
88. cell phone alarms in the morning.
89. moms who will act as an alarm and wake you up in time to catch your flight home when you forget your phone in the kitchen and sleep through your alarm, even though she would rather you just stay at her house forever.
90. only having to take one day to travel across the country, instead of driving for three.
91. bathrooms that are not on an airplane.
92. being able to save time in the morning by picking out an outfit the night before.
93. being awake enough this morning to NOT drink the ladybug that found its way into my waterbottle.
94. perfectly hemmed pants to wear to work today.
95. knowing my route to work well enough by now to not have to think about it too much.
96. free coffee. twice as much as usual this morning.
97. having a suitcase full of wrapped Christmas presents to jumpstart my Christmas mood (they are not all for me, and none of them are from me either, but they are at my house so if you are my sisters and would like your presents, then you better plan on coming to my house!)
98. short weeks.
99. finishing the list.
100. home. and being able to leave home and come home all in the same day.

black friday thanks.

so officially the holiday is over and i'm supposed to be moving on into Christmas mode, but it is still November, and i still have so so so so much to be thankful for, including:

81. a whole day to spend on the couch with nothing to do but watch tv in front of the pellet stove.
82. knowing for sure that i get my love of paint from my mom.
83. not fighting through crowds and lines in stores today.
84. snuggly little rat-dogs. or maybe just one in particular.
85. really really delicious gluten-free cookies.

i'm a little bit determined to finish out my list, and also to do my best to keep up this thankful attitude through the upcoming Christmas season too, so stayed tuned for at least a couple more thankful-posts in the next week or so.

happy thanksgiving!

we made it 'home' safely. and i could not be more thankful to be able to be here and spend Thanksgiving being thankful with the fam!

76. singing with my mom.
77. shooting guns with my dad.
78. being able to watch the Macy's parade.
79. just relaxing and enjoying the holiday.
80. Thanksgiving dinner like my Momma always makes :)

self-explanatory thanks.

i know it's bad internet manners to announce when you're going to be away from home, but i am literally shaking with excitement in my desk chair and cannot not share that I GET TO SEE MY MOM AND DAD AND BROTHER TODAY!!!!  so today, i am thankful for travel and vacation related things such as:

71. paid holidays.
72. vacation time.
73. half-days.
74. airplanes.
75. a new book series to read on the plane.

and just an aside to all you people out there who might be thinking of "visiting" our house while we're gone, just know that our house is already half empty, and what is in it isnt worth much, AND we have a cop-neighbor who we're on good terms with... so don't waste your time on our place, or you might end up in jail over what would have been a complete bust anyway. no seriously, i'm really looking out for your best interests here.  

thanks for the weekend.

61. Saturdays.
62. waking up at 9, but feeling like you slept until 11.
63. leafless gutters.
64. having an area prepped for the garden in the spring.
65. shoe shopping.
66. friends to shoe shop with.
67. old school preachers.
68. laundry detergent.
69. tire pressure gauges.
70. spell-check.

title of the post.

as these lists go on, i feel like they're getting more cryptic, and less informative about whats going on in my actual day to day life. and i think i'm ok with that. and honestly, you should be too. because if it werent for these lists then you would be subjected to literally endless posts about how we are STILL painting and we are STILL only about half-done, because we STILL dont enjoy painting trim so we are STILL putting it off. and if we're being honest with ourselves, we all know that we don't need a play by play style documentation of something that boring and stretched out.

so in the interest of keeping all my millions dozens of lovely readers around for a while longer, here have a thankful list instead of a real update.

51. vaccuum cleaners.
52. love.
53. a blanket of crunchy leaves on the ground.
54. recognizing irony and just going with it.
55. my parents.
56. friends with sewing machines.
57. sisters. and having two of them.
58. leftovers.
59. showers.
60. that i found my passport. too bad its still in my maiden name.

still (re)counting.

40. (again) cousins who read my blog and keep me accountable for my thankful count.
41. sunshine.
42. weekends.
43. that i figured out after only one coat that i picked the wrong color paint for the hallway. (the hubs wishes i would have just picked the right color in the first place)
44. i have never been followed/chased by paparazzi.
45. birthdays.
46. crockpots.
47. band-aids.
48. the Seattle Seahawks.
49. coffee.
50. the opportunity (and means) to go to Europe in the spring! eeeekkk!!!

going on 40: surprisingly thankful.

i did not want to wake up today. my bed was warm, my pillow deep, and i could have just stayed snuggled in my bed all day. so when i finally forced myself to get out of bed i was running late, hated my outfit, was scared by a spider, i fought with my hair, was upset with the hubs for no real reason, decided i hated every single wall color i picked for the house, and i was pretty well convinced that my whole day was going to be terrible, horrible, no-good, and very bad.

but instead of having to move to Australia, my day turned around. and i ended up finding plenty of things to be thankful for:

31. pillows.
32. hugs.
33. hot chocolate.
34. pumpkin muffins.
35. getting to work on time.
36. bohemian rhapsody.
37. veterans.
38. pumpkin muffins.
39. mini blueberry muffins.
40. spoons.

thirty percent.

i am thankful...

26. that we remembered to take out the trash this morning.
27. for friends that pray for me.
28. for oatmeal in the morning.
29. for jazzercise.
30. for my mom, who taught me everything i know, and who also makes me laugh.

the pictoral edition.

this weekend, i had a lot of reasons to be thankful.
and i took pictures of pretty much all of them.


18. friends.

19. paint.

20. leaf blowers.

21. shoeboxes.

22. weed whackers.

23. machetes.

24. ice cream with sprinkles for Sunday Night Football.

now if only my Steelers would have been able to finish the game... sigh.

but at least i have

25. a hubs who masked his estatic joy enough to console me in my loss.

tgif.

on this friday, i am thankful for...

12. breathtaking sunrises.

13. getting to work the right way the first time.
14. bagels with cream cheese in the morning.
15. my BFITW, who knows how to make me laugh.

(here is where i thought about putting the picture she sent me this morning of her crazy hair, complete with crazy eyes, but i want her to still be my friend tomorrow and the day after that, so i'm sorry but her ongoing friendship is more important to me than your brief entertainment)

16. Chick-Fil-A.

17. the abundant blessings in my life, in spite of the fact that i am woefully undeserving.

all the thanks i can manage.

over the past two Novembers, i have noticed a little bit of a pattern, and it goes something like this: i make a concerted effort to have an attitude of gratitude, and then the Universe dishes up a bunch of annoying things to thwart said attitude. last year it was the grocery store, this year it was my commute this morning.

allow me to explain. (and look! i even brought visual aids! bonus points for me!)

for the past few weeks, i have been taking the most straight-forward route to work at the new office. the one with the least amount of turns or backroads or chances for me to get lost, which is also the one with the most traffic. and stop lights. and did i mention all the traffic? so let's call this route the-one-that-takes-longer-than-it-should.

so yesterday, i took a new way to work, thanks to a combination of Google Maps, Gordon, and following the truck in front of me. there was hardly any traffic, and i got to work in under 30 mins. let's call this route the-brand-new-favorite-cause-its-awesome.

so then this morning, i decided to attempt the-brand-new-favorite-cause-its-awesome route without the aid of Google Maps, Gordon, OR the truck in front of me. i was feeling really proud of myself, until i got a little bit lost. i made a wrong turn at some point, and then when i tried to resort to getting help from Gordon i missed a turn when he told me to continue straight when what he really meant to say is 'hey, the road turns here so make sure you turn here to stay on the same road don't just go straight onto that other road' and all of a sudden i was right back around the mid-point of the-route-that-takes-longer-than-it-should. you know, the route i was working really hard to avoid. so instead i just made the-route-that-takes-longer-than-it-should even longer. because i'm just that awesome.

AND THEN! as if that wasn't bad enough... as soon as i got back onto the-route-that-takes-longer-than-it-should, (which i didn't want to be on in the first place) a gray taurus pulled out in front of me. but this wasn't just any gray taurus. no, this one was being driven by one of the most incompetent people i have ever met on the road.

and that, my friends, is the story of how i wound up driving the rest of the way going 15mph UNDER the speed limit, tapping my brakes for EVERY car passing in the other direction and EVERY turn, and ended up being late to work, even though i left plenty early and planned to take the-brand-new-favorite-cause-its-awesome route and miss all the traffic.


11. i am thankful that i have a car to take me to work. because walking those 12 miles would take a heckuva lot longer than even the-route-that-takes-longer-than-it-should does.

thankful in 2011.

Happy November! you know what that means? yup, its the return of the come-up-with-a-list-of-100-things-you're-thankful-for-in-November challenge! my mom started doing this way back in 2006, and my two sisters and i have each been making our own lists for the past two years. it's a pretty simple concept: you just make a list (in no particular order) of things that you are thankful for, to help you prepare for Thanksgiving and also to just keep yourself looking for things to be thankful for in all sorts of situations.

so here goes:

1. free evenings. for Halloween, we just set out a bowl of candy, and i used the free time it provided me to prime the credenza. we had some tinted primer left over from when i painted the tv stand, which is why it is brown. 

2. clean(ish) painting projects. i was pretty impressed with how un-painted i stayed during the priming-the-not-a-credenza process. usually i wind up absolutely covered in paint, but this time i made it until the second to last leg before i dipped my hair directly into the paint can and then immediately painted the majority of my left hand. oh well, we can't all be perfect all the time i guess.

3. the hubs. even though he came home from work yesterday feeling sick, he carried some heavy things for me and helped with the laundry. he also laughed with me and told me i was special when i painted my hair.

4. strobe lights. i used the two strobe lights that my friend bought for me for the rave party as last minute decorations for our Halloweenie front porch. they pretty much made it look like i actually tried a little bit.

5. corn mazes. not to mention having good friends to navigate them with.

6. IT guys. they're probably sick of dealing with me, as we're still trying to get me and my computer completely transferred to the MD office. but i'm glad i'm not trying to figure it out by myself!

7. sweater-weather. although they turned the heat on in the office today, making sweaters almost unbearable.

8. meeting new people at lunchtime. because its nice to get away from my computer for a little bit each day.

9. jobs. yeah, i'll whine sometimes about having to spend all my best hours of the day at work instead of doing more-fun things, but the truth is that i am so thankful that the hubs and i both have good jobs that we enjoy.

10. anticipation. i am so so so so looking forward to our Thanksgiving trip in 21 days!!!!

what are you thankful for this year?