Thankful Friday, March Edition

 It's been an interesting week, to say the least. I drove back from South Carolina, had some church stuff and Girl Scouts on Sunday, a slew of doctors appointments on Monday, and oh yeah, apparently we are now at war with Iran. :/  I'm still thankful for a lot, including:

1. I'm not traveling internationally right now. I can't imagine living in the middle east and suddenly missiles are headed your way, or getting stranded somewhere because you were trying to catch a connecting flight in Doha (which I have done in the past).

2. Health Insurance and pretty good health. I'm trying to knock out all of my preventative healthcare visits for the year (minus eyedoctor in July), so I have a slew of doctors appointments for a couple of weeks. Other than my angry shoulder though (x-rays and PT), everything is preventative, which is awesome.

3. It's mom's birthday! I managed to get her a Costco cake for VIPS and get her TO the VIPS meeting, so I think she had a really good day. I'll take her out for dinner sometime next week to spread out the celebration too.

4. My snow has melted! When I left for South Carolina, my yard was still 2/3 covered in snow and I had -just- managed to clear my deck of the ice. When I came home, all the snow is gone! Then of course we had an inch on Monday, but that melted pretty quickly. I love snow, but I'm also ready for spring.

5. Work is going well. I wasn't sure how working 60% was going to go, but I seem to be able to get my workload done, and my projects are going well, so that's a win-win.

6. My mojo is back a little bit. Sometimes I have a little bit of seasonal depression in January/February, and it can be hard to get things done, even things I'm excited about doing. Somehow the calendar flipping to March has helped, so I can feel more in control of my time. (Such as scheduling a bagillion doctors appointments.)

 

Thankful Friday, Edisto Edition!

 This has been an amazing week visiting family and friends in South Carolina. This week I'm thankful for:

1. The ability to do this roadtrip and see family.

2. Getting to see my aunt Carroll and Uncle David in Columbia.

3. Getting to hang out with my friend Mary Beth in Columbia. We rode the Columbia sky tram at the zoo and generally talked for hours.

4. Spending a week with my dad's cousin Betty on Edisto. Talking, knitting and needlepointing, and going on adventures in Charleston.

5. Hiking with Meghan on Sunday on a very windy day. We did 7 miles and change, saw some cool birds and lots of alligators!

6. A good friend Alexandra to leave Luna with while I was gone. 

7. Lots of doggos on this trip! Marybeth's dog Ky, Carroll and David's dog Dyna, and Betty's dogs Shrimp, Grits and Indigo.

8. That Indigo is okay. He's an 8-month old black lab puppy and he ate rat poison on Monday. Luckily we caught it quickly and a trip to the vet sorted him out and he's fine (and has probably learned nothing lol).

9. I got to do a few family history things on this trip, like hear stories from relatives, search a bit on ancestry, find a relative in a cemetery, and see the house my great aunt lived in in Charleston.

10. I got to hang out with Debbie at Cypress Trees and just chat while we did yardwork and made cookies.

11. I got to eat South Carolina shrimp twice this week already.

It's been a very good week :oD

Thankful Wednesday (?) Pre-Trip Edition

 

I'm posting a day ahead of time because I'm driving all day tomorrow and I'm not sure what my schedule will look like.

This week I'm thankful for:

1. I was able to get mom to Shrove Tuesday pancakes at church last night. She really enjoyed being with friends and kept saying we should do this more than once a year :o)

2. I got reports submitted for work. Sometimes the portal I have to submit things through is temperamental, but it worked pretty well this time. Thankful the portal worked AND that the reports are done.

3. We played a really beautiful bell piece on Sunday.

4. The Olympics, again. I love watching every day and will miss them when they are over.

5. The ice might finally be melting? Today, a month to the day of the snow/ice storm, and I was finally able to shovel my deck and open my backdoor all the way.

6. I'm off for a week and a half to go visit family and friends. Perks of only working part time, is that I'm only taking 3 days off work to be off 12 days :oP

7. Luna is doing great post-op. Acting like her normal self and even countersurfing a bag of flour lol.

Thankful Friday, Olympics Edition

 Yesterday got away from me because work was a little crazy. So here's a thankful Thursday on a Friday!

I'm thankful for: 

1. The Olympics! I absolutely love watching the Olympics. I watched the opening ceremonies last week with Garth, Karen and Kate, and I've been watching the games all week. So far my favorites are figure skating, snowboard cross, halfpipe and curling. The downhill is so cool but terrifying when people crash out. 

2. Crafting during the Olympics. I'm not great at watching TV for long periods without doing something with my hands, so I craft a lot during the Olympics every 2 years. So far I've painted a bunch of small doll houses to make a little village to display on my shelf. Next up is earrings and scrapbooking.

3. Luna came through her surgery well! She had a tooth extracted today, and also had her teeth cleaned and her back end x-rayed while she was under. X-rays are clear (she's been guarding a leg recently, just wanted to make sure nothing was going on), broken tooth is out, and we are waiting on biopsy results from a mole they removed on her lip. She's a little woozy but doing great. 

4. A great vet. They took the time to answer all my questions and called twice with updates while she was having her procedures.

5. Lots of patient friends that endured lots of texts from me today as I was a nervous dog mom. I have LOTS of good friends, and had several group chats going about pet parent anxiety. We love our fur babies.

6. My church has a new pastor and we installed him last Saturday. In the Presbyterian church, we call pastors and then 2-3 months after they start, have a formal service of installation and a big celebration. It was great to celebrate pastor Joshua and meet some of the important people in his life. 

Thankful Thursday, Snowcrete edition

 This week I am thankful for:

1. A small amount of snow clearing. A couple of days above freezing let me chisel out my trashcan and some more neighbors were able to shovel their sidewalks. I even saw MoCo blocking some lanes of 355 by the church today to use bulldozers to move ice off the roads and sidewalk. Small wins!

2. I got hang out with my cousin Stephanie on Saturday. She's in town from California visiting her dad and cleaning out a storage unit. We had fun talking for several hours over lunch and then the assortment of things we found in the storage unit, including fun family photos.

3. My girl scout troop. We prepared for thinking day on Sunday with crafts and learning about Madagascar. I'm excited to camp with them again in April too.

4. I finally got an electrician to my house. The company that does my HVAC also does electrical and plumbing, and they do free annual inspections. I had gotten rescheduled 3 times previously, and so it was nice to finally get someone out to look at things. Bonus- I also can now put all the boxes back in my closet where my electrical panel is!

5. My knee is getting better! Almost 3 months to the day when I over-hiked in November, I can do more in PT with little to no pain. YAY! Still more strengthening to be done, but this is huge progress.

6. Plans to see family in South Carolina at the end of the month. Vacations are joyous even before they begin- I always like having something to look forward to.

Thankful Thursday, Hoth Edition

 

It is SO cold. Here are some things I'm thankful for!

1. So far I have kept power. There was a decent chance we were going to get freezing rain during last weekend's storm, and the one thing I was worried about was losing power when the temperature was in the single digits. 

2. I managed to chisel out my car on Monday. It took over 2 hours, but I think if I had waited any longer it would have been permanently iced into until this mess thaws someday.

3. Snow storms are pretty. After all the prep leading up to the storm, I loved just watching it snow and sleet. Luna was not a fan of walking in the storm, but it was fun to listen to all snuggled in bed.

4. My in-person work meeting got moved from Tuesday to Thursday. This made it much easier to get into the office, and it meant I could stay for our office warming party. Win-win!

5. Board game birthday party for Elisa last Friday night, with our tradition of playing Settlers. Baa thump!

6. I got some more LOE allocated to a work project.

7. Read 2 more good books. Castle in the Sky (Howl's Moving Castle #2) and The Bakers Secret (WWII fiction). 

Thankful Thursday, Snow prep edition

 Happy Thursday folks!

This week I'm thankful for: 

1. I was able to see a close family friend in the hospital last week. For a while it looked like circumstances were conspiring against us, but we made it work. Vague-booking on purpose.

2. I'm over my food poisoning. Holy crow, did I eat something last weekend that angered my tummy. Possible culprits were raw cookie dough (most likely), tacos (relatively unlikely, I've been to that taco place a bunch), or a burger (also unlikely because it was well done, but I've never eaten there before). I was down for the count Sunday through Tuesday, and only began to slightly feel normal yesterday. Let's... not do that again, eh?

3. Good books! I finished 'The Other Americans' by Laila Lalami and 'Becoming' by Michelle Obama this week and both were excellent. I've now started 'Castle in the Sky' by Diana Wynne Jones and its a fun read so far.

4. Incoming snow! I am so excited we might get some good snow this weekend. Less excited for the potential of ice, but we'll see what happens. I braved Costco today because I am insane, so I have yummy food for a while.

5. A successful work presentation on Wednesday. Sometimes presenting virtually over Teams can be bumpy, but I think this went well and we had a good discussion.