Thirty Days of thanksgiving- Days 23 24 and 25

I have fallen victim to this nasty illness first my mother and then my children wanted to share. So Sat and Sun and today... I have no voice. Or what I do have is gravelly and less than beautiful. I have been so tired and run down. Still it hasn't all been bad. It never is. Even though I want to climb into bed and pull the covers over my head.. I can't because my husband already has... and SOMEONE has to watch the kids. ( don't worry he 1. knows this is true... and 2.  never reads my blog ... so he won't get his feelings hurt) {oooh snarky... gotta watch for that when I get to feeling like crap even the girls and keagan noticed yesterday}.... so on to Thanks giving .... or at least giving thanks.
For my 23 thing I am grateful for yarn. As many of you may know my addiction to yarn began when I was in highschool. My mother taught me to knit at the ripe age of like 11 and it took me a couple of years to get into the swing of it.... but once I did... whoo hoo baby! My granny taught me to crochet when I was 18. And I found that knitting and crochet healed my soul. It helped to bring me back to the center. I taught myself how to embroider..... and again something that brings such peace and contentment to me. I had to quit doing all of them when my babies were little. I couldn't do anything with any sort of pattern... because I could only knit two stitches at a time before I had to go and save a kid from something. So I took a break rather than get frustrated over something I had control over. During those dark days my yarn stash actually got relegated to the storage unit 1.5 miles AWAY from my home. It was not a good time. My stash suffered from terrible neglect. My step son Codie even suggested that if I weren't going to use the yarn... maybe his grandma could... she crochets. Forgive him... he had no idea.
I have been able to pick up my yarn and start making things again... and it is saving me. It brings me to peace again. What is better is that I am selling the things I make which makes me feel even better about it. I have always hesitated to call my "handiwork" art... because it doesn't really qualify as fine art. I am not working with pen and paper, or oil and canvas.... the items I make often have a functionality to them rather than being art for art's sake. And yet.... it makes me feel so wonderful when something I have envisioned comes to fruition and I have a functional piece of art. The process frees me in a way that is hard to explain fully. I am watching my ideas come to be... and I am praying that I can make that into a functional method of sustaining my family. Fiber ( the technical word for yarn and thread and the like) is to me as.... chocolate is to other souls. I love it... and I love making with it.... and I love sharing what I have made.
Day 24 I am grateful for music. I am not a person who knows too much about the current trend. My step son asked me if I like Bruno Mars in the car the other day and I had to admit I didn't know who that was. I simply don't listen to music of that nature.... now there are a lot of names from an entirely different era that I can wax poetic about. Bela Fleck, Victor Wooton, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, Vassar Clements... Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Utah Phillips, Stan Rogers, Lunasa, Eileen Ivers, Karan Casey... the list could go on for pages. I love music... I love how I can find the right item to fit my mood. I love how when it is storming if you put on Chopin it sets a mood that is dark and somehow charged with energy. I love that when traditional Irish music is put on your foot gets to tapping and it is hard NOT to move. I love when I put on The Nutcracker my little girls start practicing their ballet. I do not tend to listen to the radio... I have NO idea what the newest trend it. I love putting on music and knitting..... it is the best of both worlds and when combined with coffee... it is a slice of heaven. It speaks to me in a way that nothing else in the world can.... and I am so grateful for it.
And today it is snowing out... The first one that is going to stick for a bit. This is the end of our year.... we are blessed enough to have a spring filled with beautiful flowers... a Summer that allows for great growing, an Autumn that is filled with bounty and colors, and a winter of snow and ice. I am so grateful for the seasons here. I am so grateful for the change and the color and the beauty. Every season has a wonder attached to it. Every season has a unique beauty.
In some areas of the world they do not have the seasons like we do here. And while I would love to have 70 degree weather in Jan and Feb when we have a stretch of below zero weather.... I wouldn't trade it and give up snow on Christmas and sledding down Hospital Hill. I wouldn't trade it and miss the leaves changing color and raking them up for the kids to jump into. I wouldn't trade and miss the first blooms of spring and the cheer that it brings to your heart. I love the changing of the season. I love the new and different feelings that each season brings. I love sitting near the window with my knitting and some jazz in the background with a hot cup of tea watching the snow fall on us. It is the very definition of peace.

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving - Day 22

Today I am grateful for silliness. Playfulness and silliness is something that I have a hard time falling into. I have never been able to lose myself in it. My husband on the other hand can make everything into play. It is one of the things I love most about him. Ashlynn has inherited that trait. She is able to create silliness out of thin air. She can make nearly everyone laugh and smile. Taryn has an imagination that makes up amazing stories and pretend games..... and with the three of them in my life I have often been put in the place of being playful. What a wonderful way to be. It frees that part inside of you that was chained up when you became an adult. It opens the world and makes the sun shine.
When we become playful or silly we lose the weight that sits on our shoulders. Suddenly we don't have any cares.... and isn't that how it should be? What is so important that we should worry about it? .... more importantly why should we worry if we can change it? Well simply enough we should NOT.... because we can change the outcome..... so if we can't change it.... should we worry? hmm well can't change it... rather than allow worry to destroy our OTHER joys we should simply let our attachment to it go. Easier said than done I suppose. Still I just spent 15 minutes in the kitchen dancing with two little girls who insisted that we dance in circles and that we had to switch dance moves every time we made a round.... It was amazing and we were giggling and laughing and out of breath... and we were in love with life for those minutes.
So I am so very grateful for those moments of playful silliness. I am so grateful that I have people in my life who can help me to loosen up.... because we all need to sometimes.

Thirty days of Thanksgiving- day 21

As this is late by a day... today I am grateful for patience. Not just yours.... my children's patience also. I have fallen victim to the ill vapors that have permeated our house for the last week. So that means that we have nearly recovering kids.... and sick mommy.... and that is a bad combo. Still we are surviving... because my children are remarkably patient, even though that is one thing I often lack.
It isn't just today.... my children are patient with me every day. See I am not perfect, I screw up... and they are far more patient with me that I tend to be with them. There is a moment of chagrin when I realize that I have snapped on a kid who is just looking for help... or something equally as child like. My prayers every night include the ability to have more patience with my children. They are so amazing and every day I spend most of my waking moments with them.... and I am so awed by what they do and who the are becoming. I am totally knocked over by their creativity and their imagination. It is hard though to remember that creativity and imagination are messy sometimes... and that they need space to make a few mistakes to learn the best method. It is difficult to take the breath I need to take when washing their own hair turns into an entire bottle of shampoo gone in an instant.... into the bath and never retrievable. Independence is so important... but telling her that she just needs a drop of toothpaste and then watching the geyser that flows into the sink sort of erases the great importance of it. I hear my self repeating things I heard as a child.... " well if you didn't squeeze the middle of the tube as hard as you can... then you could CONTROL how much comes out." And sheesh once you tell a kid she should get it right .... right? Only that isn't exactly how life works. And I know I have sighed, tsked, snapped and snatched way too many times in the life of these kids. "But Mommy I was just trying to help." Oh man have any words hit the heart of a parent worse than those words right after you snapped at her.
You know what though... these kids curl up next to me every night and say " you're the best mommy in the world." and they seem to mean it. They truly love me that much. They think I am the best mommy in the world even with all my mistakes and character flaws. They are so patient with me as I bumble my way through this job of being a mommy. This job which is the most important that I have ever taken on.... and the one that I have so little experience to prepare for. Thank goodness, Thank Spirit for their patience with me. And as I watch them, I am learning how to be more patient with both them and myself.  

Thirty days of Thanksgiving- Day 20

Today I am grateful for kids movies.... no seriously I am. We had to take Taryn to the Dr today. She was up all night with croup... and Ashlynn has a fever now. So... well there we go. This afternoon we are having hot soup with oyster crackers.... and watching one kids movie after another. The girls, neither of them, feel like doing much more than this... and I am trying to do things around them. Truth I am not getting much done, as Taryn is asleep now on the couch and Ashlynn is spread out on the dinner table and Dave is asleep in the bedroom.
I don't know if there are many things worse than your kid being sick. I kind of feel desperate in spite of the doctors visit today because she gets better then gets sick then gets better and then gets sick.... and I just want her WELL. The kids don't even really have the energy to FIGHT right now... and that means they are NOT feeling well! Still there is a level of grouchiness that comes with five straight days of sick and indoors.
So we have watched one kids movie after another to keep busy. And it is taking the edge off of the grumpiness.. of maybe it is just taking everyone's mind off of it. I wish I could say that we are grateful for everyone being well.... but until we CAN say that.... I am grateful for distractions.

Thirty days of Thanksgiving- Day 19

Today I did something that I find very difficult. I asked for help for my family. In August my husband injured himself seriously. Surgery repaired the two tendons, two nerves, and the artery that he severed. His fingers are paralyzed and have no feeling and we have always relied on his income for our family. We are making it... by the grace of God we are making it. But it isn't always pretty or easy. Dave has odd jobs that seem to make the bills just in time, and there are some pantries nearby that have been a remarkable help, our church has taken up a collection that helped in the nick of time. Spirit has kept us afloat. 
Today though I went and asked for help. We have an energy assistance program in our state, and I applied to hopefully get help paying for our energy bills through the winter months. Going to this today made me sick to my stomach and nervous. I told the casemanager Dana that and she felt bad... “ this is what we are here for.” she said. Yes... but not for ME. Not for MY FAMILY.
Still when you have little ones you end up swallowing pride. It isn't the first time that I have had to swallow my pride.... and it probably won't be the last. Still I am grateful that programs like this exist for those times when we need them. Without this program making our winter energy bills would be far more difficult. Without the extra from some of those pantries our food budget wouldn't stretch enough. And when people come together to help another it is always amazing. As the recipient I was deeply touched. There are so many ways that we all need help. We all live in this hard world together.... some days I can be the help, some days I have to ask for the help. I have found that it is infinitely more difficult for me to ask for help than it is for me to offer the hand of help. 

So today I am grateful for help. I am grateful for the help that I have received and also for the help that I can offer. We do not live alone in this world... and when we remember that and reach a hand out to the person next to us who needs that hand it is a blessed thing. 

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving- Day 18

Today my Taryn is sick. We have lots of clothes to clean owing to this young lady's stomach unrest. So we spent the morning with her snuggled on my chest while we sat on the couch watching one Christmas movie after another. There is a sweetness to that, even once you figure in the nastiness of the sick. So today I am so grateful that I CAN be there with my daughters when they get sick. Many mommies don't have the ability to just sit with their child. Many mommies have to work and though it breaks their hearts they cannot be there and instead have to find family members to stay with them. I am a lucky lady.
There are so many things about motherhood that are so amazing. While there are sacrifices that have to be made.... the gifts of motherhood far outweigh the sacrifices. When my husband and I discussed marriage and family... it was agreed that we would always have a parent home with the children. And that parent is me. My husband works double hard to make sure I can stay home.... but so do my parents. My mother and father want for my children what they couldn't give to me. And they are generous enough to help our family to be sure that I can stay with my children. This allows me to sit on my couch cuddling a feverish four year old when she needs it. I am so very very grateful for the support that those around me have offered to make this possible for myself and my children. It helps to foster in those sweet babies the idea of what family truly is. And when you have a strong family core, you are rich in ways that many can only imagine. 
Today she is sick... I put my life on hold for her.... but the magic of the days that they are well... the leaf jumping, pancake making magic.

I home school my littles. And I have Ashlynn reading and Taryn already writing her letters with help. They are allowed to learn at their own pace.... and I am able to be an active part of it. I am the luckiest mommy in the world. And I owe it in no small part to the people around me who support me to ensure that I can be the mommy at home that I want to be... and my children need me to be.

Thirty Days of Thanksgiving- Day 17

I am not even sure that I know how to approach today and what I am grateful for. Several towns in my state were hit terribly hard with tornadoes. There are people who are dead.. there are people who have lost everything. The damage that has been inflicted today by mother nature is truly heart wrenching. We are here we are safe... we were not in the damage path but instead just on the outside where we looked outside and looked at storm clouds and hail with wonder.... but did not have any damage. It seems selfish of me today to be grateful for much of anything. A person who didn't watch as mother nature tore her world apart.
A dear friend's family lost EVERYTHING, but she was visiting with family and were not home. Another dear friend lives in the area but were on a trip and were out of danger. She does not know if her house is okay yet. So yes I do have something to be grateful for... I am grateful that the people I know who were directly effected by this storm system have only lost THINGS. I am grateful because THINGS can be replaced. I am grateful that they have been in touch with the people who love them most and have let them know they are safe.
I pray for healing and comfort for the people who have lost family, their homes... their everything. I pray for strength for them as they rebuild lives. My heart goes out to each and every survivor of the tornadoes that ripped apart the world today.