Day 29: What Bill

 

What bill are you grateful to pay?

This is a funny prompt.  The knee jerk first response is, "none".  And then, when you start thinking about what you receive in return for the bills you pay, the next answer is "(almost) all".  This morning, the bill that's standing out to me is the garbage bill.  Garbage is a subject we hardly have to think about, except remembering once a week to get the bin out to the curb.  But if you live in areas or countries without this service, you have to do a lot of thinking about garbage - burn it?  Bury it?  Live with a bunch of junk around?  It provides major public health benefits to have garbage disposed of so efficiently, it keeps things more beautiful and orderly, and it just makes life way easier.  I'm thankful for the waste management workers and the whole waste management system.  

Day 28: About Your Home

Zoey, age 4.  Shortly before ropey entered the scene.

 

What are you grateful for about your home?

I'm grateful that we have a front and back yard with trees.  In the front yard, the big maple tree in our front yard provides shade in the summer so that the kids can hang out and run around even on the hottest of days.  In the back, the fruit trees remind us of the seasons, with flowers in the spring, lush green leaves in the summer, fruit sprouting in the fall, and bare branches in the winter.  The apricot tree branches start really low, so it's been fun for the kids to climb starting as toddlers.  It's convenient to have a fenced in yard for our dog to run around.  I'm grateful for the kids to have a place to run around, and I'm grateful to look outside the windows and see green.

Day 27: In Your Country

 

What is something you're grateful for in your country?

Again, there's a list that comes to mind:

1. Like the rest of the world, I'm watching the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and praying for and sympathizing with the Ukranians.  It reminds me, despite the struggles in the United States right now, of how much we have to be grateful for here.  I'm grateful that we are at peace, and not facing any military threat within our borders.  I'm grateful that we have a strong military, and that there are so many willing to serve to protect our country.  
2. There are people in my life facing difficult and scary medical situations.  This makes me grateful that we have access to excellent doctors, world class hospitals, and the best medicines and treatments available.
3. Watching the winter Olympics and reading of some of the recommendations to athletes makes me grateful for our freedom of speech. I'm grateful that the government doesn't censor us or throw us in jail for the content of our words.  I'm grateful that this allows for the exploration of ideas, the challenging of bad government policies, and innovation.  It relates closely to other core freedoms - freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press.  I am especially grateful for people who choose to use their speech well.  It feels like there's lots of bad ways speech has been used recently - lies, cruelty, cancelling, ugliness - although I don't know if that's different than it's ever been, maybe it's just easier to see because of all the public platforms.  But regardless, that makes me so grateful for people who use their speech well:  to tell the truth, to be kind, to encourage, to speak something beautiful.  

Day 26: Meal Today

What is a meal you're grateful for today?

I'm grateful for the comfort food of grilled cheese with homemade tomato basil soup.  I remember my mom serving up grilled cheese on winter days and it was a meal that always hit the spot.  Now I appreciate it because it's easy, the ingredients are usually on hand, most of the family enjoys it, and it really feels like the right food to go with a chilly day.  We've had a warm winter here, but are finally getting some snow and a cold streak, so I'm finally getting to make soup to match the weather.  I'm grateful for comfort foods, for any food vehicle that makes vegetables taste delicious, for the snow that we've needed so badly, and for foods that span generations.

Day 25: About Your City

What are you grateful for about your city?

I am grateful for so much about Reno, so I'm going to do a list!

• I love the geography of Reno.  I love that we're high desert, and when we go for walks around the neighborhood, we walk through sagebrush and our dog chases lizards rather than squirrels.  But I also love that we're right at the edge of the mountains and can enjoy their beauty driving around town in almost every direction, not to mention adventure in them year round.  I love that the high desert climate means we get all four seasons, but none of them are severe.
• I love the size of Reno.  Midsized cities of about 200,000 - 500,000 are my favorite - there's plenty of interesting stuff to do and new restaurants to try and places to explore, but it's not so big that it feels crushing.  And when you live here long enough, you start to feel the six degrees of separation effect - you're not too far removed by personal connection from anyone.
• I love the character of the people here.  It's partly the wild wild west / independent / cowboy frame of mind, where people like to be left alone to live wild and free, but it's also heavily influenced by California, and has some of that healthy living / casual cool style.  (But if you're going to be a true Reno-ite, it is an absolute must to blame Californians for everything that's going wrong here, from the affordable housing crisis to heavier traffic to overcrowded schools to anyone being rude in any time or place.) 
• I love that leaders in the community are striving to reinvent this city, to make it more than a casino town living in the shadow of Vegas.  They are bringing in interesting tech and start ups, creating shopping and restaurant districts that aren't all about casinos, and just in general doing a bang up job of moving Reno forward.  
• Most of all, I love and am grateful for the people I'm close to here:  the Ching family, my friends, and my Dayspring church body.  

Day 24: About Social Media

What are you grateful for about social media?

I am grateful for my 4q deletion parents Facebook group.  I'm grateful for a way to connect with other parents around the world that would've been impossible even just a decade ago.  (Which probably coincided pretty well with the timing of much greater access to genomic testing  - so a bunch of us started finding out that our kids had a super rare genetic diagnosis around that time, and then we had a social media network where we could connect!)  I'm grateful to be able to give and get medical information, educational and developmental ideas, and emotional support.  I'm grateful to see the pictures of kids who are ahead of us on the journey, or just starting out.  I'm grateful to cheer together for successes, and to pray and struggle together in harder times.  I'm grateful that, while things are currently good and we haven't needed to ask a question to the group for awhile, they are always there when needed.  I'm grateful for the camaraderie I feel with all these people I've never met, but with whom I share this really important thing.  And for all the ways that Facebook is detrimental, I'm thankful that it allows people in all kinds of new and scary medical situations to get this same kind of information and connection..  

Day 23: Use of Your Phone

What use of your phone are you grateful for? 

 I am grateful for the ability to text. Here are some particular things that pop to mind about it: 

• It's a convenient way to stay in daily touch with family far away, even when we're in different time zones.
• It's a handy way to set up plans with a group without having to make a dozen phone calls.
• It's been a good way to stay in touch with friends during the pandemic, or as schedules and life situations change and it's harder to find times to get together.
• It's great for prayer groups:  to share prayers requests, to tell people you're praying, and to give updates on situations.

I'm so grateful for all of YOU who are my texting buddies in one of these categories and who cheer the spirits through daily check-ins, funny memes, giving and receiving prayers, sending good quotes, and sharing life.

Day 22: Thanksgiving Memory

What is a Thanksgiving memory that you're grateful for? I have so many good memories of Thanksgiving in both Reno and Lincoln, and I'm grateful to my mom and my mother in law for working hard year after year to pull off this huge family feast. But, the Thanksgiving memory that popped into my head for this prompt actually comes from Norfolk, Virginia in 2011. Josh had just received his cleft palate surgery and was in the PICU for a couple days. We weren't able to leave him even to attend a gathering, let alone to try to cook and host; we were new in town; and both of our families lived at least 1500 miles away. Our plan for Thanksgiving that year was to run down to the hospital cafeteria and grab whatever they had put together. Lo and behold, not just one, but two new friends were kind enough to bring us Thanksgiving meals in the hospital. Both of these people had hosted their own gathering, so they had been cleaning and shopping and cooking for days, and were probably ready to just sit back and relax a bit, rather than pack up a plate and drive across town to the hospital. But both of them found the time and energy on the holiday to leave their own family gatherings and make sure we weren't alone and we didn't go without the traditional meal. Every time I think about it, I feel this surge of gratitude for these kind friends.

Day 21: Small Item that you Use Daily

What small item that you use daily are you grateful for? I am grateful for Stitcher, an app on my phone, because it plays podcasts. This has revolutionized my enjoyment of chores that I used to find tedious. Now I look forward to laundry, dishes, sweeping, and toilet scrubbing, because it's the time when I get to stick in my ear buds and listen to podcasts about religion, books, running tips, stories, and ideas. I am grateful for all the people who work in the podcast world, not to mention those who invent things like ear buds and smart phones, and who make it possible to attend to the mundane parts of daily life while simultaneously being transported to another world.

Day 20: Grateful for In Daily Life

What are you grateful for in daily life? I'm grateful for the times of day when I get to talk to Kenny. Usually, the two best times for this are over dinner and right after the kids go to bed. There are some days in stay at home mom life where, though you're conversating all day long, there is little to no adult conversation. So by the end of the day, it's so refreshing to talk about what's going on in the world, on to talk about ideas, or get advice, or have some laughs. And it's nice to have these conversations with someone who's so funny, smart, and thoughtful, and who I know so well. I'm grateful for my conversations with Kenny.

Day 19: Splurge Item

This is not me, but this IS an area of Tahoe I hope to paddleboard!

What splurge item do you own that you are most grateful for? 

For my birthday this year, Kenny gave me an inflatable paddle board.  I am so excited to try it out!  As the kids get past the age where shovels and buckets provide a full day of entertainment at the lake, but we all still love going to lakes as our favorite summer activity, it's fun to have a new piece of equipment that will let us all explore the lakes in a different way.  I'm especially excited to try paddling on Tahoe, as you can see (from the picture above) that the water is so clear and there's breathtaking scenery above, below, and all around.  I'm grateful to Kenny for his constant generosity in gift giving, and I'm super duper excited to try this latest splurge out.

Day 18: Trait

What trait do you have that you are grateful for?

When I was in college, we played this ice breaker game at Intervarsity where people had to choose what kind of car you would be.  At age 20, I was hoping that people would choose something special and cool, like a Ferrari.  But what they chose for me was a Subaru - a dependable, reliable car, which at the time I felt was a pretty ordinary and boring way to be.  But now, I'm grateful to have been seen as someone who was reliable.  Who would do what they said they would do, remember to send out the email each week, be reliable to show up for events regularly - in general, not to forget and flake out on people.  I'm lucky to be surrounded by people who are trustworthy with my spouse, family, and closest friends, and it's super nice to be able to count on people.  I mess up sometimes, but now I'm grateful to mostly be a Subaru.

Day 17: About Your Job

What is something you are grateful for about your job?

I'm defining my job as "stay at home mom" since that's my current full time occupation.  Something I'm grateful for in having the role of mom be my full time gig is that it gives me lots of time to do read alouds with my kids.  What this looks like changes with every age and interest.  With Ivy, it's lots of picture books from the library throughout the day.  With the bigger kids, I have a chapter book of their choice that we read through together at night.  

But the morning is my favorite.  For the last year, we've been reading our way through the Chronicles of Narnia over breakfast, a couple pages at a time.  Right now, we're in "Voyage of the Dawn Treader".  I love watching stories draw the kids in.  I love when Josh has an idea pop into his head about what might happen next and blurts it out because he just can't contain his excitement.  I love how these stories feed my soul as well as the kid's.  And I'm so grateful that my current job and schedule allows for a more leisurely breakfast pace with read aloud time.    

Day 16: Band

 

Here is part of the playlist

What is a band you are grateful for?

Once again, I'm modifying the prompt a bit, and changing it to a Spotify playlist I'm grateful for.  This year, I'm grateful for Zoey's Spotify list.  Both Zoey and I can put up a reserved front, but have big feelings lurking under the surface.  And for both of us, music feels like freedom - it's a way that helps these feelings come out into the world.  The songs are mostly pop, some of which I like more than others, but they are all great for an energizing sing-a-long.  It's been so fun to play a list that Zoey loves as we drive up into the mountains (the other thing that feels like freedom to both of us), and both of us sing along at the top of our lungs.  Sometimes Josh and Ivy join in, sometimes they plug their ears, depending on which song and what mood and how well we're hitting the notes.  Music is a great way for me to bond with Zoey right now, and with all the kids, I'm grateful to find those connection points.  

Day 15: About Your Body

What is something about your body that you're grateful for?

This is kind of a stretch from this prompt, but it's what I feel like writing about today - I'm grateful for long fingers that allow me to play the piano more easily.  My parents had me take piano lessons for about 7 years during childhood.  I really liked my teacher, but didn't always have the best attitude about the daily practice sessions.  When the lessons were over, I completely stopped playing for the next 25 years, which might lead one to question whether all the time, money, and effort that went into lessons over those years was worth it.  Then the pandemic hit, and a bunch of time that was previously spent running around to activities freed up.  And there was a need for activities to bring cheer.  And we had a keyboard set up, thanks to my father-in-law's generous supplying us with musical instruments of all kinds.  So I started playing piano again, after a decades long break.  

It's fun during Christmas to be able to play all the carols.  It's fun to do duets with Kenny on guitar, and sometimes the kids join in with drums and singing.  It's fun to remember long forgotten songs like "Moon River", or to play classic singalong tunes like "Lean on Me", or any of the Beatles repertoire.  I'm so, so grateful that my parents persisted and gave me this gift of knowing how to read music and play an instrument to a level that I can pick up a songbook decades later and work my way through it.  I'm so grateful for my piano teacher, who provided just the right combination of good humor, musical knowledge, and encouragement.  And I'm grateful for the gift of music to tap into unreached parts of your brain and spirit.

Day 14: Rejection

What rejection are you grateful for?

This question prompt made me think of the college application process.  First things first, I'm glad those days are behind me!  I remember feeling a lot of pressure about it - not coming from my parents or my school, just internal - and I'm glad to have those days of writing essays and asking for teacher recommendations and waiting for fat or skinny envelopes in the rearview.  I applied to half a dozen schools for both college and law school, and received some rejections in both rounds.  The school I most clearly remember getting rejected from for both undergrad and law school was Cal Berkeley.  I didn't feel grateful on the days when I received the rejections, but I'm really glad that my school journeys went the way they did.  I am so grateful for my friends, experiences, and education from both schools, and for the husband and family that came from my days in law school.  I'm grateful for the chance to have lived on the East Coast for several years and see what the culture and cities are like in there.  I don't know for sure if I would've gone to Berkeley either time - the siren song of the Bay Area / West Coast was strong, so it certainly would've been under heavy consideration - but the point is that I'm grateful my life turned out the way it did, and one thing that helped steer it in that direction was this set of rejections.

Day 13: Season of the Year

 

What season of the year are you grateful for?

Summer is my favorite season, but today, I'm feeling particularly grateful for spring.  I'm grateful for the energy that comes with this time of year, as the light in days gets longer and the flowers bloom and show new life coming into the world.  I love some of the holidays of spring - St. Patrick's Day, March Madness, and Easter.  I love track and field season, and I love doing long runs in this season of not too hot, not too cold.  And I love that when spring ends, it vaults you into summer.

Day 12: 3 People I'm grateful for

 

Who are 3 people I'm grateful for?

I'm grateful for the grandmas in my children's life:  Nana Nancy (who is celebrating a birthday today!), Grandma Betty (who celebrates a birthday next week!), and Grandma Mare.  Each of these women are strong, smart, beautiful, and could have a whole post written about what amazing people they are, separate from their identity as a grandparent.  However, today I'm grateful for how much it helps ME and how much it benefits my kids to have three sets of actively involved grandparents.  

Each Grandma is differently situated as far as work and geography, but all of them find ways to maintain regular contact with the kids.  The Reno grandmas frequently babysit for the kids, see them at church, and regularly host family dinners or stop by with treats.  For the Nebraska grandma, our time comes in bursts of a week together every 3-6 months, with phone calls and letters and packages in-between times.  These grandparent times simultaneously give me a break and give the kids an extra set of adults who love them, who can teach them about different things and have different kinds of conversations, who can be different role models for them, who can be praying for them, and who can be a different set of eyes and ears for anything that might be going on with the kids (good or bad).  It expands the community of love and care.  

I'm grateful that each of these three grandmas are so generous with their time, with gifts, with their love, and with sharing their space.  And I'm grateful that each of these three are women who I WANT my kids to learn from, to spend time with, and to become like.  I am so abundantly blessed by each of them.

(The three grandpas are all terrific, too.  They add to this community of love, and bring lots of laughs, playfulness, geological facts, musical knowledge, sports trivia, and many other things.)

Day 11: Movie

What is a movie you're grateful for?

I'm grateful for the movie Bridesmaids, and particularly for a good memory I associate with this movie.  Last summer, around the time when the mask mandate had gone away and then come back and it was clear that there were going to be more waves of covid, and wildfire smoke was starting to creep in, and things were just feeling like a bummer, my friend Karen hosted this really fun backyard event.  She got an outdoor projector and tubs of popcorn and set up cozy seating, and we had an outdoor movie night.  We watched this hilarious movie together and between Melissa McCarthy and lip synching to "Hold On" and just being with friends, everything felt so happy.  I'm thankful for Karen and her Enneagram 7 energy that pulled this together; thankful for her friendship and for the friendship of the others that were there; and thankful for how good it feels to laugh together, and for this movie that brings the laughs from start to finish.  

Lesson 10: Grateful for In Childhood

 

What is something you're grateful for in your childhood?

I'm grateful that my dad played sports with us growing up.  My dad loves sports - playing them, watching them, coaching them, analyzing them.  Growing up, he would often take us outside and work on football passing patterns, or the footwork for boxing out when rebounding a basketball, or how to watch a baseball into the glove when you're catching a pop fly - and these were ways he showed love.  (I should  add that he also showed love through words and hugs - this was an additional way of showing love.)  I'm grateful to have had that quality time.  I was glad to have those fundamental skills as I participated in some of these sports growing up.  I'm grateful that, in a family where there were two boys and two girls in the kid set, he included all four of us in the sports lessons and didn't just wait for the boys to get old enough.  I'm grateful that he continued this sports enthusiasm by being at every game / meet / competition as we grew up, cheering us on.  I'm grateful that sports are something we can continue to enjoy as a family, and now my kids spend time with their grandpa learning how to swing a golf club, or playing football.

Lesson 9: Place I have traveled

Where is a place you're thankful to have traveled?

I'm thankful that I got the chance to travel to Ireland with my good friend / college roommate Judy. Both of us have some Irish heritage, and Judy has actually reconnected with some of her Irish family, so we were both eager to see it for ancestry reasons.  Judy and I lived in different cities at the time of the trip, so we decided to meet in Dublin.  This was pre smart phone days, and I was a little nervous about doing the journey on my own, but it turned out to be empowering to figure out things like getting through customs, navigating Irish public transportation, and managing to successfully meet up at the hostel.  We split our time between Dublin and the Irish countryside.  

In Dublin, it was fun to visit libraries that are older than the United States by centuries, to see buildings that looked like castles, to visit the Guinness Brewery, and to hang out in the pubs during some big rugby matches (both similar to and different than American football culture).  The real highlight, though, was seeing the beautiful Irish countryside.  It was pretty rainy and cold on many of our days, but we enjoyed a hot toddy in Galway, watching the sheep on the bright green hills from the train, and visiting Judy's family in County Cork.  

I'm so grateful for this to see a different part of the world, a different way of doing life, and a slice of my past.  And I'm grateful that I got to do this trip with Judy, who is an expert trip planner and a fun and easy person to spend days with.  

Day 8: Lesson in Life

 

What lesson in life are you grateful for?

I am grateful that my parents taught me to be a joiner.  We moved from the small town of Norfolk, NE to the bigger town of Lincoln, NE the summer before I started 9th grade.  I was leaving behind a beloved best friend and a community of familiar people, and starting in a new town at an age when most people already have their friend groups.  My parents immediately signed me up for a softball team, started us in a church youth group, and helped me sign up for tryouts for the school volleyball team.  Some of these activities (volleyball) took more than others (softball), but they were all extremely helpful towards the main goal:  I knew people when I walked in to school that first day.  Despite the fact that I was the new girl, and in a really dorky and awkward phase to boot, I had people saying hello in the halls and I had a group to sit with in the cafeteria on that first day.  A couple of these people eventually became my best friends.

This lesson is helpful to me, in particular, because I have a shy and introverted personality.  Getting together with people I don't know well, or in big groups, is always the harder choice.  On any given day, it's always easier to just stay home with my nose in a book or go for a solitary run than to get together with a group of unfamiliar people.  But we all need people, and we all need connection.  And sometimes life takes you to different communities, different schools, different jobs, or different churches where you don't immediately have any social connection.  Even though the process of going to gatherings with unfamiliar people sometimes feels difficult and awkward, and even though it doesn't always result in immediate deep friendships, I'm grateful that my parents taught me that as a general rule it's worth it to be a joiner.

 

Day 7: Book

 

What book are you grateful for?

I'm grateful for "The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories" by Ken Liu, for three reasons:  

First, it's a really good book!  It's well written, imaginative, tackles a variety of subjects in a variety of styles, makes you think, and is enjoyable throughout.

Second, it's a member of two groups that I didn't used to read a lot of:  1) speculative fiction (which includes fantasy, sci fi, and some of the more fantastical fiction / magical realism) and 2) short stories.  For the last several years, most of my fiction reading has been new literary fiction, and while these are still my favorite, it's fun to find new genres that you like - it really expands the world of books to explore and enjoy.  Especially during these pandemic years, it's been fun to escape into worlds that are way different than our current reality.

Third, this book was recommended by a friend.  It's so exciting when you discover that a friend is also a reader!  Who reads and recommends books that you really like!  And who you can also be recommending new books and talking about bookish things!  So this book helped grow a friendship, and I'm grateful for that.

Day 6: In Nature

What in nature are you grateful for?

I'm grateful for mountain lakes, and in this post I'm specifically grateful for those lakes that are off the beaten path.  We love Donner and Tahoe days with friends and are already eagerly longing for those fun summer days.  But there's something so exciting about a lake that not as many people know about, that you have to drive down a long, bumpy dirt road to find.  And then once you find a parking area, you hike in some more.  You might spend as much time getting to the lake as you do enjoying the lake, and that's part of the fun of it!  When you get there, it will be way less crowded, less trash, more pristine.  Even though we don't (yet) go to places that are truly way out in the back country, any extra effort to get to a lake makes it feel more special, more of an adventure, once you're there.  We are lucky to live close to tons of these kinds of lakes, we are only just starting to scratch the surface in discovering them, and I'm super grateful for them.   

Day 5: Item in my Home

What item in your home are you grateful for?

I think this prompt was pointing more towards inanimate objects, like a blender or washing machine, but there are no prompts on the master list about pets, and I can't let a whole month of gratitude go by without mentioning our dog, Bear!

I am grateful for Bear's unwavering love for his people.  If I go into the bathroom for 15 minutes to take a shower, he is waiting at the door when I come out, tail wagging, like it's the greatest moment of his life that we are reuniting.  When we sit down to watch TV, he's on the couch next to us seconds later, ready for a cuddle. 

I'm grateful that if someone is sad, he's by their side, ready to dole out a lifetime supply of licks.  

I'm grateful for his enthusiasm - When we say the word "walk", he starts doing circles near the leash and you can almost see the cartoon exclamation marks going off in his head.   Even though, in true pug fashion - if we go more than half a mile, he will need the rest of the day to recover from the exercise.  

I'm grateful for how he makes us laugh with his head tilts and the odd way he reacts to so many things.

Even the things that are more difficult are lovable in this dog.  For example:  he and Zoey's endless tug of war power struggle over the rope.

I'm grateful for the joy that pets bring to so many people, and I'm grateful that our dog Bear brings so much joy to our family.  

Day 4: Memory

 

What Memory Are You Grateful For?

I am grateful for the memory of hiking up Mt. Blanca.  There was a group of about 10 of, with various levels of hiking experience and physical fitness.  Mt. Blanca is a fifteenish mile (round trip) hike up a 14,000 foot mountain.  Most of the hike is climbing over rocks rather than a smooth dirt path.  Because it's so long, we carried backpacks with tents and food so that we could camp out at the lake on our way back down.  Since many of us (including me) were newbies to this whole endeavor, we got all of our gear - backpacks, sleeping bags, tents - at the local thrift store.  We did have a couple people in the group who knew how to do things like navigate the route, set up the tents, start a fire, and filter water (in case any of you reading this are experienced outdoors people and are starting to panic for us, haha).  

When you hike a fourteener, you leave your house in the middle of the night and hit the trail at the crack of dawn.  We started our hike on schedule, but with the wide variety in our group, it took longer than expected to get to the campsite, longer than expected to set up camp, and by the time we were preparing to do the last couple miles up to the summit, it was noon and clouds were starting to roll in.  The wise thing to do at that point would've been to heed the weather, stick around the campsite, and wait to try to summit until the next morning.  But we had already put in the hard work of rising early, struggling up the long road to the lake, pitching camp, and getting so close, and we all wanted to reach the summit that same day, so we decided to go ahead and keep going to the peak.  

At this point of the hike, the ridge was getting narrower, the boulders were getting bigger, there were ice patches, and the visibility was getting foggier and foggier.  And then, we started to see lightning.  In the cloud that we were right in the middle of, while climbing the narrow, icy ridge near the peak of a mountain.  We all understood that we were in serious danger and needed to turn around immediately, and we all started scrambling down as fast as we could.  There was no visibility in this thundercloud, there were tons of places where we could've taken calamitous falls, and there was the ever-present threat of the lightning.  I'd never been so scared in my whole life.  But somehow, we all made it back that mile and a half to camp alive and without so much as a sprained ankle.

Why am I grateful for this memory?  Because it felt to me like a powerful encounter with God.  I had been struggling with some faith questions and was kind of in a wandering / doubting phase, spiritually.  Being in the literal middle of a storm reminded me of the power of God, and seeing us all be completely delivered from that grave danger, against the odds, reminded me of the gift of salvation.  And it made the things I had been wondering about seem really minor and insignificant, in the face of those big things.  I'm grateful for this adventure, grateful that we all made it through, and grateful for the spiritual clarity that came from the experience.

Day 3: Food

 What food are you grateful for?

I am grateful for peanut butter sandwiches.  These are Josh's meal for almost every lunch and dinner.  At age 11, he is still quite impacted by the oral aversion that he developed from having a feeding tube in his early years, and sometimes it's tempting to get discouraged and frustrated about that.  But you know what?  Even though it's limited, this trusty sandwich (in combination with a variety of fruit and cheese or yogurt) has kept him healthy and has kept him growing and developing.  Some other things that are great about peanut butter sandwiches?  They're super affordable.  You can buy the ingredients anywhere.  They are easy to bring along in my purse and they travel well.  They don't need to be kept hot or cold.  They are quick and easy to prepare.  I'm grateful to this bread and peanut butter concoction for being such a faithful standby meal.

  

Day 2: Technology

 Day 2:  What technology are you grateful for?  

Not all heroes wear capes

I am grateful for E-cart groceries.  I really enjoy most parts of the feeding the family process.  I like reading through cookbooks and finding new recipes.  I like the rhythm of chopping vegetables, the smell of sautéing garlic and onions and spices, the magic that happens as raw food cooks into something more delicious.  But I *dread* the part where you have to go to the grocery store.  I don't like the fluorescent lights, getting the cart with the wheel that sticks, trying to find that one ingredient that is crucial for a whole meal but you have to check like five aisles to figure out where it is, or the delicate dance of maneuvering around the slower shopper, or being the slower shopper and not being in everyone else's way.  (I do like the grocery store music, and I like how since we all have to wear masks, it's easier to get away with singing along without it being awkward - but I digress.)  Enter online groceries!  Now I can "load" the cart on my computer at home, and then someone else does all the hard work and I just drive over and pick them up.  So much time and effort saved!  Thank you, online groceries, for taking one of my most dreaded chores and making it so much easier.