150 Days of Thankfulness

It's been 150 days since November 1st and I have found something in my life every day to be thankful for. WOW! Have you ever sat down at the end of each day and thought about what you had to be thankful for that day, for an extended period of time? I won't lie when I say that in the beginning I honestly thought, "that will be easy". There are definitely days when it is so easy. There have even been days when I have had so many things that I was covered for a couple of extra days. But there have also been days when I have sat here for a long time thinking about the day and really having to dig to find something that I was thankful for in it.

I recently had someone say that the things that I was thankful for were self-centered and that I should look at the world and find more important things to be thankful for. I suppose that we are all entitled to our own opinion and they can think that I'm being self-centered if they want to. The thing is, I suppose that's the point of my daily thankful post. I look at MY life so of course it's "self-centered". Yes, I'm thankful for the people who work in my community, for the grocery store checkers, the gas station attendents, the civil service people but the point of my daily thankfulness is for what I'm thankful for in my daily life.

I'm thankful that I have an amazing family, that my sweet girl is growing into her love for reading, that I have quiet time to myself in the evenings, that I have that priviledge of staying home and taking care of my family, that my husband works so hard to provide all he can for his girls, and so much more. Yes these are all self-centered thankful thoughts and yes I will continue to focus on my life in just this way. God has given me so much and why not take the time to focus on what He has done and thank Him for that.

Making a Room Full of 2nd Graders Smile

One of the things I'm thankful for in my life is that I have the priviledge of staying home to take care of my family. Because of this I have the joy of being able to take treats to my daughter's 2nd grade class last week for St. Patrick's Day. Of course it's not a holiday that is made a big deal at school and they never have a party for the day but it was a good excuse to make special treats and make 32 2nd graders smile.

So earlier this month I went on the hunt for an idea of something new and fun that I could make for the kids. My name is Leahann and I am addicted to Pinterest. There I said it, I know I'm not alone and I don't see it as a problem LOL. But in my search I found some really great ideas. Special gifts, great snacks and fun treats. I chose to make rainbow cupcakes and Leprachaun floats. Since my daughter's class is pretty small I made enough cupcakes to share with the other 2nd grade class as well.

I love that I can do special things for Kim's class and she gets so excited in the planning and putting together of whatever we decide to do. Now to be on the look out for the next special "just because we like you" treat.

Family Time

For being a stay-at-home mom I tend to have a very busy schedule that keeps me on the run a lot. One of my favorite things is being the worship leader at my church. I absolutely love getting into the presence of God and leading the congregation there and I rarely take a weekend off. But this was one of those weekends.

We had an extra busy weekend last weekend with special guests from Bethel Church, so my wonderful Pastor suggested that I take this weekend off. So I did, and what a great weekend it was.

We spent Friday evening with our nieces and nephews just hanging out, ordered pizza and enjoying some company.

Saturday it happened that BG went to see his mom for the weekend so we slept in, a very rare occurrence in our house. When we did get up and moving we got to enjoy some beautiful sunshine and warm weather. I spent part of my day getting started on cleaning up the winter mess in my yard. Kimberly and I even went for a bike ride. We rented movies and made dinner together. And like any good ICarly fan we made spaghetti tacos.

Sunday we went to breakfast with Grandma. Her birthday was earlier in week so we took the morning to spend some time with her. We then had plans to go to the water park. We have this wonderful friend Maureen, who works there and she blessed us with a pass for the day. We swam the lazy river and climbed the stairs to the top of the tunnel slides. My little dare devil girl loves the tube slide. Then spent some relaxing time in the hot tub.

All in all it was a wonderfully relaxing weekend spent with my family. We laughed and snuggled and had fun together with no schedule and no agenda. I'm so blessed to have such amazing people in my life and I'm very thankful for every one of them. And tomorrow I'll get back to the regular crazy busy schedule of cleaning house, doing laundry, running after kids, and preparing for Sunday morning. My life is really great and I am truly blessed in so many ways.

A simple cup of coffee

The past couple of months have been really stressful for my husband's employer, as well as so many other peopl in our community and us. With Hecla shut down for production and then the fire at the Sunshine. There are many people out of work right now and for my husband's employer they actually have 5 drills stuck underground that they can't go get right now. And they have had to shuffle many of their people, lay off a few and move others to another job site.

Yesterday was payday and when I went into the office I could see that JJ was having a really rough day, and it was only 10am. She gave me my husband's paycheck and I went about the rest of my day, all the while thinking about her and how stressed she obviously was. So this morning as I headed out to run my errends.

After our 14 days of random acts of kindness last month we committed to being purposeful and doing a random act of kindness for someone at least once a month. So today was a perfect day to do someone. So I made a quick stop through the coffee stand and pick myself up a tastey chai tea and then stopped at the office on my way back out of town and one for JJ as well. I took her in that sweet little treat and she was so surprised and I think a bit overwhelmed. I told her that I could tell she was having a rough day yesterday and I wanted her to know that we appreciate all she does for our family and that I hoped she had a better day. I left her office feeling great and my day was awesome as well.

I want to also take a moment to clarify that doing these acts of kindness and sharing what we are doing for others isn't about patting ourselves on the back. I do however hope that we inspire others to do the same. Knowing that you can do something as little as taking someone a cup of coffee and totally change how they are feeling about their day is so worth it.

Living in a small town

While there are benefits and added conveniences to living in the city, living in a small town has it's benefits as well. I love the quiet of my neighborhood. I love that my kids can play out in the yard and I don't really have to worry about them, of course they aren't totally unsupervised but I can go in and out and not worry. I love that I can go to the store to get a gallon of milk and it take an hour because I ran into someone that I hadn't seen in a while so we took the time to catch up. I love that when I go into my bank everyone that works there knows my name when I walk through the door and they are more then happy to take the time to help me with any thing I need. I love that as I drive down the main street in town I will inevitably pass at least 2 people that I know and we always wave at each other. I love that I can sit on a park bench on the corner and have a conversation with a total stranger, and them be shocked that I would actually sit and talk to them. I love that my daughter can walk down the street and people who pass her know who she belongs too. I love that I can see someone that I don't know and they will say "hey tell Larry I said hi" because they know my husband and who I am. I love that when I drive down my street I know who almost every one of my neighbors are. I love that our little town is only an hour's drive from the city when we feel the need to go there.

I know that there are many people who love city living and I will agree that there are great things about living in a bigger town. But I think I will happily take my little town of under 1000 people. Where I've know the Chief of Police since I was my daughter's age, our mayor since grade school. I also know that there are people who live in my own town who don't like all those things that I love because they feel like "everyone knows everything about everyone else's business", and while yes that sometimes is a downfall to living in a small town. I still will take that over the crazy, noisy, chaos of city life any day.