Thankful Thursday - July 25, 2019

I'm having such a hard time carving out time to blog in coordination with inspiration this summer! Today I'm joining in the Thankful Thursday link-up, hosted at Knit By God's Hand with Rebecca Jo.

I am a strong believer in gratitude, and the idea that 'what you focus on, you find.' I first learned it as an '-ism' when I was in training at Quicken Loans years ago. Instead of a mission statement, they have their -isms. Obviously they made an impression on me. :)

This is our week for celebrating our daughter! Maggie turned 12 on Tuesday. I am SO thankful for her. She is smart and so fun to be around. I love how she helps around the house and with her brother. Her contributions are vital to our family (and my sanity!).

So we know she is awesome and fun, but through celebrating, I also got to go out for brunch and dinner on Tuesday, we got lunch and ice cream with a friend yesterday, and today she and I went to the mall to spend birthday gift cards.

She's fabulous, and celebrating a birthday is always a good time.




I am thankful for my favorite TV shows. Which sounds kind of odd if you know me - I really don't watch much TV! But I've been enjoying The Handmaid's Tale (just three more episodes left this season!), and I'm looking forward to the final season of Orange Is The New Black (which releases tomorrow on Netflix).





I'm really not into clothes and shoes too much, but I got these Tieks last year and I still love them. I'm thankful for shoes that make my feet feel like they're being hugged by a cow.





Last but not least, I'm grateful for a job that gives me summers off, and that I enjoy enough so I'm not dreading going back to work next month! Some recently compared summer to a weekend - June is Friday, July is Saturday, and August is Sunday. I'm not one to hate Mondays, or spend Sunday dreading the return to work ;)

Thankful Thursday

Well, my quote is a nice sentiment and all, but most of my thanks today are pretty materialistic. Sometimes that happens.
Either way, I am thankful, and joining up with Knit By God's Hand for Thankful Thursday :)

If my typing seems a little off, it's because my nails are a little wet. LOL I am so thankful for essie's gel couture long-lasting polish. Once school's out, I'm finally allowed to polish my nails again! Today I'm going with a shade called 'exhibit a-line.' It's a pretty coral shade. I love this line of polishes because they dry pretty quickly, and stay without chipping for more than a week at a time.


Okay. If you don't have cats, or know anyone who does, you can skip this one. But I'm so very thankful to have found the Kitty Poo Club this spring! The wonderful crystals for litter have eliminated the smell coming from my cats' litter boxes! Huge yay for that. We have their main litter box in our laundry room, which is the first room we come into from our garage. And my husband likes to say, "Want to keep a box of poop in your house? Get a cat!"
But he's had much less opportunity for snarky comments since I switched to Kitty Poo Club last month. This stuff really works, and I'm thankful.

No idea what to use for an image on this one, but I appreciate my Kindle that I got for Christmas nearly every day! When I'm not reading books I've received to review, I am often reading books I've reserved from home, at my leisure, on Overdrive for libraries. So simple to 'shop' for books, and then they email me when they're available! And my new backlit Kindle lets me read them anywhere - in bed in the dark, out on the porch in the sunlight, or curled up on my couch. How convenient is that?!?

Last but not least, I'm so thankful that summer finally seems to have arrived. And as is the way with someone never fully satisified, I hope it rains a little bit while I'm gone this weekend for the sake of my transplanted rose bush. Keep your fingers crossed she thrives after the transition!! But I'm still  loving the heat and the feel of the sun on my skin while I sit outside.

What are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday

I'm joining Knit By God's Hand today for Thankful Thursday.

I am grateful lately for all my extra work hours! See, I am only officially employed for 10 hours/week. That's 2 hours/day. Because really, that's all I want to commit to. But since school started last month, I've been needed at other buildings for more hours. And those extra hours mean extra pay, which is really helping out as we get caught up on the autumn and back-to-school expenses.

I am thankful to my son for letting me play Plants vs Zombies on his new iPad. I earned my first iPad back when I was a consultant with Dove Chocolate Discoveries (now known as The Cocoa Exchange). Plants vs Zombies was my favorite game, and I played it all the way through to the end. Now most of the game is the same, but there's a lot of ads and 'extra games' (which you earn by doing things like watching ads). So I skip all the new ads stuff and play my game again. Thanks, Jack!

I can't mention that game with out also appreciating my Tiny Tower game on my phone. Some may consider it a sad day when my biggest accomplishment feels like it was building a floor on my Tiny Tower, but sometimes that kind of day just needs any victory I can find!

I'm also grateful for my two delightful children who still enjoy spending time with me as much as I enjoy spending time with them. Today's Jack-ism - "Someone should tape a traffic cone to my head so I can be a unicorn." Better yet? It's the very first thing he said this morning, before he even opened his eyes.

Last but certainly not least, I am so thankful for the good health my family and I enjoy. Each day we wake up refreshed and ready to tackle what we have to tackle that day.

What are you thankful for this week?

Trying to get back in my groove...

Work and back to school have been kicking my tushie! Yesterday I was a zombie all afternoon, but a good night's sleep last night has made me feel a ton better.

While checking around on some blogging friends, I found Ann, who today is participating with Thinking Out Loud Thursday and Thankful Thursday. They both sounded like a good idea to me!

What I'm thinking out loud about, as the school year starts for this lunch room employee, is parents actually recognizing the importance of being 100% truthful about food allergies.

I know that sounds sort of odd, but I've encountered a few kids who had allergy alerts on their lunch accounts (which will stop me from selling anything containing the stated allergen to the child), but then removed it at a later date. What's up with that? The only real reason I can think of is that it was a sensitivity, not a true allergy, and the child has matured to the point that they can choose their level of exposure. Unfortunately, most parents want it to be something where they just tell the lunch lady it's all good - there are actually official procedures to change something as serious as a food allergy on a child's account.

I'm so grateful not to deal with any food allergies in my personal life, but it really annoys me that some parents seem to use an 'allergy' as an excuse to monitor their child, when there are truly life-threatening allergies that must be taken seriously. The importance of the correct response to a real allergy is so serious, and I hate seeing it diluted when a parent changes their mind about an allergy periodically. Allergies can be life and death, and that's how we treat them in the kitchen.





And in an interesting twist, today I'm thankful for a job where I feel valued and appreciated. I love the kids I work with daily, and I'm even lucky enough to have great co-workers at both locations where I work. It all makes waking up at 6am til halfway through June a little bit better.

Thankful Thursday

SO MUCH to be thankful for <3 <3

My disappearance last week was because I took my kids on a road trip. We went to visit my parents in their RV in Florida. I'm so glad we all got to spend that time together, and also grateful that the drive there involved only minor snow squalls in the first evening, and the drive back included nothing worse than rain.

I'm so thankful for my fantastic Perfectly Posh team! We are on track for a GREAT promotion this month, and are growing by leaps and bounds. Want in on the magic? Posh also just announced a sale on our business kit. This just does not happen! For the rest of February, you can get $5 off your business kit (regularly $99), which includes more than $250 in products and tools. Please let me know if you or someone you know might be interested!




I'm super thankful that I get to stay home with my kids. I said this a long time ago on this blog and got horribly burned for it, but it's the truth. My husband and I decided wayy back when we were dating that we always planned for me to stay home and raise our children. I know it's an opportunity not everyone has, and I am always thankful.

And while I'm talking about my family, words can't express how thankful I am for my marriage of TEN YEARS (as of last week). It seems weird how many things I can now easily say were more than ten years ago, since I wasn't married when they happened. Ten years sounds like an INCREDIBLY long time to me! LOL In a good way, I promise ;)

I'm so thankful and excited to be looking forward to Disney on Ice - 100 Years of Magic next month at the Palace of Auburn Hills. The show is March 10 - 13, and tickets are still available here. Disney always puts on a wonderful show, and I'm sure this one will deliver a great evening of family fun too. The kids are looking forward to this one even more than usual, because everyone was asking them if they were going to Florida to visit Disney! LOL




Last but not least, I'm thankful to be spending the day with my kids at home since there's a snow day in our district today. I hate the snow, but I really love my kids. On the mention of snow, I am also thankful that we own an easy-to-operate snowblower. My hands are positively dead from the vibrations after clearing the driveway and walkway three times in the last day, but shoveling would have had me out there non-stop!


What are you thankful for this week?

Thankful Thursday

Wow. I've got to say, I just started re-listening to Dana Wilde's Train Your Brain audios again this week, and they are as inspiring every time I review them. I'm feeling really thankful and positive.

I'm thankful for my beautiful, almost finished basement. We had a flood early last month, and we've now been through the drying (including removing several patches of drywall and most of the carpet padding), ANOTHER drying (when it was discovered the fridge was also leaking into the basement), replacing the carpet padding, repairing the drywall, and painting (including redoing most of the trim). All that's left is cleaning the carpet, and that should be on the schedule next week! It's also helping me go through a lot of stuff in the storage area of the basement and get it OUT!

I'm grateful to my husband for his dedication to supporting our family and showing us a good time. This weekend we get to go hang out with his 30+ cousins at a family reunion for his mom's side of the family, and we're staying with his dad to be close to the festivities! The kids are gonna have a blast. And hubby has the luxury of telecommuting on Monday so we don't have to ride home in crazy traffic Sunday night.

I appreciate my daughter's help with all of it so, so much. She is a super fun and perky kid, who is growing into a helpful and positive human. I love her more than words can say!

Last but not least, I'm really enjoying finally having hot summer weather! Poor Michigan made it through June and most of July feeling like spring. Wha?!? Welcome summer! I'm loving it and trying to store up these warm fuzzies for our long winter ;)

Thankful Thursday

I'm struggling something awful with a headache today, so maybe a dose of thankful is just what I need ;)

I'm so thankful to my amazing best friends for our most fabulous weekend together. I spend last Friday through Sunday with my absolute bestest pal. We bed-and-breakfasted in New Hope, PA. IN addition to of course each other's company, we had delicious food, fun shopping, and even beautiful weather to enjoy it all.

I'm thankful that I just did really well on my last project. See, I have a scoring job usually through the spring each year, that I'm admittedly not very good at. I got on a project on Monday, though, that totally clicked with me. I aced testing, then got two great days of reads in before the project finished.

I'm thankful that my daughter has tomorrow off from school. I'm not even sure why they have it off, but I always like having her around :)

And the last thing for now is that I'm thankful that hubby and I have some time away this weekend while we attend a wedding, then stay nearby instead of driving right home. The kids will love having some quality time with Mimi and Papa.

Thankful Thursday

I'm having a hard time with this today. There is so much bad news lately, or maybe I've gone back to just reading too much news again.

I'm thankful for the regular, incredible stuff: my family, the security of my home, my independence of having a reliable truck... but life still feels unfair. Unfair in my favor, but still making me sad. It can all be taken away so quickly and unpredictably.

But today is my day to be thankful and positive, right??

I'm so, so thankful that my girls' weekend is coming up. Fifteen days, to be exact. I obviously need a reboot. I can't wait to laugh, relax, and enjoy spending time with some of the most fabulous women in the world, who I don't see nearly often enough.

And on that note, I'm so very grateful that I do have my long-distance friends. I love knowing I can message my BFF at nearly any hour, and she's there for me. We commiserate, vent, brainstorm how to make it better, then pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and head back away from the chat more ready to face the world again.

I'm thankful that my boy finally peed in the potty. Once, but that's more than none! I'm also thankful that hubby and I are on the same page with this thing known as 'potty-training.' It will happen, but the boy has to want it first. We can't want it enough for him, and I hate mopping up pee. So we'll wait til he's ready.

I also appreciate the warm weather so much. I really hate the cold and feel like I'm finally just coming out of hibernation this week. C'mon sunshine!!

What are you most thankful for today?

Thankful Thursday

Rockin it with an old-school list of some things I'm thankful for this time :)

1. My wonderful kids
2. My husband for taking such good care of us
3. My beautiful new (to me) Durango for getting me around in the snow. My beloved Charger would not have made it out yesterday.
4. My book of life - otherwise known as my Erin Condren Life Planner. (And my address book, and notebook, and...)
5. Books. Whether they're the old-fashioned kind that I need to find my reading glasses to see the words, or on my Kindle so I can just make the words as big as I need them, I still love reading.
6. Good friends and neighbors
7. Direct sales. Including my own businesses with Perfectly Posh and Dove Chocolate Discoveries, and just the concept in general. Direct sales provides the opportunity to work for the compensation you need. The more work you put in, the more rewards you'll see (and it's ages 16 and older, for Posh!).
8. My brain. I try to appreciate that I'm intelligent enough to take care of myself and my family, and generally feel like I know what's going on. Maybe that's more confidence than intelligence, but I'll take it ;)
9. My house and community. I admittedly HATED moving out here initially, but I soon realized that I'm very comfortable here. It's similar to the community I grew up in, so I quickly felt like I could fit in. As far as I can tell, I'd be content to stay put forever. And this time, I mean it.
10. This blog. Holy cow. Since March 6, 2002. Please leave me a comment. Let me know someone is reading. How did you find me in the first place?

Thankful Thursday - The Maybe Lady

A random act of kindness can warm up your whole day.

Last week, when Jack and I were out picking up a few groceries, he was very talkative. He was babbling about this and that, and needed to go say hi to the lobsters and point out everything on the way.

As we headed through produce toward the lobsters, a woman approached our cart and smiled. "Maybe," she said. Umm...okay. She looked happy, and was gesturing at Jack, as he continued his conversation with her. "Maybe," she said again. Each time was with a slightly different inflection, like there was a lot more thought behind it than just that little word.

I always try to play interpreter a bit during Jack's conversations, so I told her that he'd been good so far, and we were almost done. It was shaping up to be a good trip. She said, "Maybe," again, then held up her hand for me to wait. As she reached into her purse, I figured she was getting a penny so he could ride the horse on our way out.


Instead, she put a dollar bill into my hand, smiled again, and said, "Maybe," as I thanked her very sincerely.

Imagine my surprise when she had walked away and I looked in my hand to find a five-dollar-bill.

Jack was very good through all our errands that day, so I promised him we would be getting a treat for him, which I'm sure was what the 'Maybe Lady' intended. After we checked out (and he got his ride on Sandy the horse), we headed through Wendy's on our way home for a chicken-nugget lunch with a Frosty.

Thank you, Maybe Lady!

Thankful Thursday (The Premier Edition)

I didn't follow through with the 30 Days of Thankful (otherwise known as November) on Facebook this year. It seems repetitive to me.

See, I do this fabulous activity from The Mind Aware with Dana Wilde that's called '10 Minutes before Bed.' It helps focus your mind on things that are good to focus on before the semi-hypnotic state we call sleep. Part of the activity is listing what you're thankful for (or what's going right, or a few other options once you've been doing it for a while). So every night, before I go to bed, I make a list under a heading that says gratitude, or thankful, or appreciation...you get the idea.

I've chosen to take a day every week on my blog and talk about one or more things that make me feel thankful.

Today I'm really thankful for a nice simple one. Warm things. I hate the cold. I appreciate my heated mattress pad, snuggling under the covers, the magic blanket in our family room (which is magic because it makes you fall asleep once you're under it all warm and cozy), hoodie sweatshirts, and a working furnace, just to name a few.

Feel free to join in! Add what you're thankful for in the comments, or write your own post and link back. Talking about what we're thankful for makes everyone feel more blessed and positive, I think.