Gratitude

It has been a looong week. I don't know why this one seemed so much longer than any other. Perhaps I've spent more of it awake than usual (not that I'm sleeping in at some other timein my life). Perhaps the news from London was just the sort that stretches time and warps it enough to make it feel both huge and compressed all at once.

Since I'm feeling all grateful and warm about how blessed I am, I thought I'd post a few of my "good things"...

• A roof and beds for each of my punkins and me.
• Flowers in the yard.
• The world's cutest, smartest, and funniest children.
• Chocolate. Of course.
• Lots of fonts and colors to play with in Word. Had I known that there was a custom color option available, I would never have gotten around to writing anything here or anywhere else. Have you ever played with those colors? Maaan. Go do it, you'll see what I mean. It's downright addictive. The power! The variety! The spectrum!!
• Language. It provides me the ability to communicate my love for my precious offspring, my affection for chocolate, my (transient) despair and perpetual delight at the goings-on of life. Without it, I would not have a framework for discussing theology, David would not have had the tools with which to express his relationship with his Maker. Can you imagine not having the Psalms? Proverbs?
• Piano. Lessons for the kids, years of knowing how to play for myself. What an awesome way to unwind. I wish I could do it more.
• Chocolate. It needed to be said again.
• Cherries. We're at the end of the season, but boy, have they been awesome.
• PEGS. It's working here, though today was a bit of a wash--fevers and headaches kept us from accomplishing all we set out to.
• Lakeshore Learning Center's lesson plan book. I now own my fourth and love it as much as ever. I adore possessing handy tools, which this certainly is.
• A decent brain. It needs some training and some rest, but it does well, generally, for my purposes and I am profoundly grateful for that.
• Soccer balls and the muscles they help to grow as they're kicked back and forth between my kids and me. Exercise. Yessirree, where there's a will there's a way. (As an aside, have you ever noticed that youth sized soccer balls are astonishingly near the size of a, uh, human head? Talk about cathartic. I'll let you take care of the visuals there.)
• Q loves to be outside (just like his daddy did when he was a baby) and is so, so happy to talk to the trees when out. This has been especially handy when we were planting the aforementioned flowers. You'll see them if I can ever figure out flickr. Argh.
• Food. Enough. Good stuff. That looks nice. (That we care about how our food looks defines us as "rich"--ha. Very funny, though.)
• Therapy for Q. Good resources every time I turn around. Smart people who know their stuff and aren't threatened by my desire to be clued in. Awesome.

These are a few of my favorite things...la lala la, la lala la.....

Tonight I wish you restorative sleep, peace that passeth understanding, and security/excitement in love. Go hug your honey. (Then wash the sticky off--"Hands in the air!! Go to the bathroom sink. No, no, hands in the air 'til you wash! There you go. Good job." Sigh. You do remember that I have five kids? Am I excused for the mama reflex? Thanks. Mwaaaa.)

Sweet dreams.