Thankful Me

  A red blossom on a peony my cousin sent me from my grandma's garden I have always been fascinated with the concept of time. I distinctly remember turning 10 years old, and realizing that that was it for single digits for me, and recognizing that it would be a very long time before I hit triple digits. Obviously, I was a bit of a strange child, or at the very least, an old soul.  Although I've been rocking the double-digits for multiple decades now, the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop is just now approaching that milestone. I do hope that you will join with us June 9-11 to celebrate!  Not only have I been thinking about the number 10 this past week, I've been thinking about the number 100, because that is how old my grandma would have turned this week, had she still been alive. A little over 10 years ago, I wrote a bit about her in this blog post . She had so much tragedy in her life, but that did not define her. She was quick to laugh and had a heart of gold. She opened h

  Photo shows a red sun setting over the Great Salt Lake As I've been gathering my thoughts for my post (and that's an apt expression, because sometimes my thoughts are all over the place!), I realized that the beginning of next month will be the 10th anniversary of the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop! Put June 7th on your calendar as TTOT Day.  Invite your family, friends, and neighbors and have some cake. If there can be "Christmas in July" activities, there can certainly be "Thanksgiving in June!"  In the meantime, you can gear up for the big party by thinking on the past week. What are you thankful for this week? Here's my list: 1. I'm thankful for a negative covid test and the end of isolation. As much as I love my bedroom, I'm glad to not be confined to it anymore. 2. I'm thankful that the isolation paid off and John didn't get sick. 3. I'm thankful for individuals and businesses that are generous to foster families. I had the c

  Pink tree blossoms frame a picturesque scene from Sitka, Alaska, of soaring white-capped mountains in the background and various small boats docked in the water in the foreground  Time is such a funny thing; minutes can take forever, and years can pass quickly. Since I last blogged, John and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary. I'm thankful for our marriage. On the one hand, I don't think we're old enough to have been married that long, but on the other hand, we've packed in a lot of adventures in those years, so I guess the years do add up correctly. We are the same people, and yet we've changed. I wonder if butterflies ever think back to their caterpillar days with as much wonder and amazement?  We had scheduled a trip to Alaska, not because of our anniversary, but because we wanted to go with my parents on a cruise. We had everything booked and ready to go, but a couple of weeks prior to the departure date, my dad required surgery and so my parents neede