eat! craft! live!

30 days of thanks: day 29ish

At this point I've sort of given up...

I'm thankful for elderberry elixir, Emergen-C, hot tea and a warm bed.

Can you tell what I've been up to today?

I'm also thankful for coupon codes...I made some more calendars, as in years past, and have been ridiculously slow to actually tell you about them! D'oh! But anyway, better late than never, right? They're over here and for the rest of the day Lulu is having 35% off using coupon code CYBERTUESDAY305. Yay! (I'll keep you posted on any additional coupon codes in the future too...)

30 days of thanks: days...eh, whatever

OK, so apparently I'm not so good at this "blogging every day!" thing.

*sigh*

I'm thankful for the wonderful people in my life.

I'm thankful for my beautiful daughter. She is smart and funny and entertains me every day with some fascinating little thing she does or says. I had no idea that having a kid would be so...fun. She's the most awesome little person I know.

I'm thankful for my lovely husband. (I'd have to be to sew him some flannel PJs, considering he's 6'4" tall...that's a lot of sewing...)

I'm thankful for my family. I have a small family and they aren't all nearby, but I love each and every one of them, no matter how they frustrate me at times. They're family! They're supposed to, right? My dear sister, parents, aunts and uncles. Cousins I rarely see. Grandparents I only occasionally see, despite them living close by. Extended family. Step-family. Honorary family. They're all wonderful.

I'm thankful for my friends, both in real life and online. Sometimes I feel like my online friends are more "real" than my real life friends - we share so much in common and communicate much more frequently than most of my local friends. But local friends are just that - local - and I love knowing that there are at least a handful of people out there in my community that I can call on when I need a friend. Thanks to you all.

30 days of thanks: day 22, 23, 24

Oooops.

I forgot!

Well, on the 22nd I was thankful for a relatively healthy child, despite the fact that she woke up with a cough in the middle of the night and coughed so hard she puked all over me, herself, the bed... All in all, she's a healthy kid and I couldn't be more grateful!

On the 23rd I was thankful for our mere dusting of wet, slushy snow, instead of the 6-10 inches that was forecast! I am already missing several work-at-home days this month, due to holidays, and I couldn't afford to keep E home from daycare so I was really glad she was still able to go!

Today I am thankful for everything in my life this day: my beautiful daughter, wonderful husband, fantastic family, pie, mashed potatoes and especially...stuffing. Ah, my favorite part of turkey day.

Happy thanksgiving to all who celebrate it! And happy Thursday to all who don't!

30 days of thanks: day 20

What am I thankful for today?

Cashew tamari dressing!

Seriously, this stuff is amazing. I used to eat it all the time at Mother's in Austin when I lived there. It was a great vegetarian restaurant and they made this amazing cashew tamari dressing. When I first ordered it, I had no idea what to expect. But it was the house dressing and I figured, heck, why not, right? MY LIFE HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME.

No, really.

I never really crave any other salad dressing besides this one. It's so good that when I moved, I tried really hard to figure out if there was a way to obtain the dressing outside of Austin. There was a brief discussion with an employee about buying a case and having it shipped. None of that panned out and recently I discovered a recipe that very closely approximates it. I can't even remember where I found it - but I'm going to have to post my version here sometime so you all can experience the wonderful deliciousness that is this dressing!

30 days of thanks: day 19

What am I thankful for today?

Naps. Yup.

It's been a long day.

:: photo Friday :: 30 days of thanks: day 18

What am I thankful for today?

These ladies! Friends, facials, Friday!

30 days of thanks: day 17

What am I thankful for today?

Hidden gems.

Maybe "gem" isn't exactly the right word...

We live in a cute little neighborhood. At the end of a nearby street, I'd always thought there should be a path...turns out there is! It's a delightful little path through the woods that leads to...an awesome playground! The closest elementary school is just a block over and the last time M, E and I walked over (probably in the spring...) there was no playground.

No playground!

How does an elementary school not have a playground?

I was elated to see that they do, in fact, now have a playground! I can't wait to take E on a walk through the woods to play on the playground. We are lucky and have another playground at a small local park a block in the opposite direction, but choice is good!

30 days of thanks: day 16

What am I thankful for today?

Oy. That's a tough one. I'm thankful for small moments of happiness in an otherwise annoyingly bad day.

I went to the market this morning, as I always do on Wednesdays. Upon arriving, I had to drive around a lot longer than usual to find a place to park. Huh. So I parked, fed the meter my very last quarters (only 30 minutes' worth - usually that's plenty of time!) and walked on up to the market in the beautiful, freakishly warm November morning. When I arrived, I went to the info booth to use my EBT card to get little wooden tokens that you can use like cash at the market. Unfortunately, the person who was supposed to bring them had forgotten, so they told me it would be another 30-45 minutes before they were there. OK. I know I don't have much time on the meter, but what else am I going to do? I've got to get food! I buy some kale from the one farmer that has his own EBT card-reading-machine, then I pop over to the post office a few block away to pick up some boxes. Which they don't have out. And it takes them forever to find. I head back to the market and sit on a nice sunny bench and pull out my knitting. (Thank heavens for portable knitting!) I knit a few rounds on my sock before a lovely woman asks what I'm knitting and we get into a nice conversation about knitting, crocheting, felting and general woolly wonderfulness. Finally, I see that the info booth has their card reader and tokens so I head over. Unfortunately, IT'S NOT WORKING. After many frustrating minutes, the other customers and I finally get our tokens.

At which point my usual egg guy is out of eggs, because I've had to wait so long.

*sigh*

I manage to find eggs elsewhere and fill my bags with delicious, seasonal, local produce. Wonderful!

As I approach my car, I see that I've been ticketed. Usually, 30 minutes is more than enough time for me to go to the market. This morning?

An hour and a half.

So, yes, technically I overstayed my welcome at my 30-minute-meter. But only because I was too broke to actually have any cash on hand, which meant that I had to wait ages for the little wooden tokens. So basically, I got fined for being broke.

To top it all off, I nearly killed myself and others when I was approaching a light on the way home and the sun was shining at just the right angle so that I couldn't tell if it was red or not...

It was.

I stopped.

Barely.

This is a pretty long rant, considering I'm suppoed to be thankful!

But.

BUT!

I got to sit and knit on a sunny bench outside in the middle of November! Something I would ordinarily have been too hurried to do. Which led to a conversation with a stranger. Another something I wouldn't normally do. (She happened to be waiting for the EBT machine too...)

Small moments in an otherwise crappy day.

30 days of thanks: day 15

What am I thankful for today?

This may sound like a bit of an odd one, given my love for food. (Or maybe not?)

Anyway, I'm thankful today for Weight Watchers!

If you don't know me personally, you probably wouldn't know that I'm not a delicate flower. It's true! Shocking, I know! So when a coworker mentioned that a new Weight Watchers meeting was starting up for free at our worksite, I decided at the last minute to join up.

And today I found that I've lost 3.6 lbs since last week!

30 days of thanks: day 13

What am I thankful for today?

(Actually yesterday - it completely slipped my mind!)

You!

Yes, you, my lovely readers. There aren't many of you, but I like to think you're a select, superior bunch. Thank you for every comment, every email. I appreciate each and every one!