"We Are So Lucky."

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about gratitude. I have a lot to be thankful for these days, and I want to make the conscious decision to keep gratitude for these things at the forefront.

I'm not sure she knows this, but I have a friend who is my inspiration in this area. Lou lives in California, as does her daughter Elsie, who is also my friend. I've never met either of them in real life; we became acquainted via an online scrapbooking website. Lou also writes a fantastic blog, and it's here where I often read things that make me teary-eyed when I consider their importance.

Lou hasn't had any kind of an easy life. She has faced trials and tribulations that would overwhelm a lesser person with aplomb and grace. She struggles even now with events that are not completely in her control, but again...her head is high, she shows resolve and calm, and she gets done what needs to be done.

I don't think she has any idea that I draw so much inspiration from her, or that I want to be just like her when I grow up.

One of the stories Lou has told is that she and her mother often shared a refrain in which the call would be "We are so lucky," and the response would be that yes, they were. I want to model this in my life, every day: to focus on the positive aspects, of which there are many.

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  Andy and I are so lucky to share a deep friendship that predates our and almost even supercedes our romantic relationship. I've never been in a relationship where I'd been friends with the person first. It makes a huge difference. I used to think snide thoughts about people who would say that their spouse was their "best friend." Now, I understand.


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  We are so lucky to have 3 healthy and relatively happy kiddos. (I say "relatively" because we must keep in mind that one is a teenage girl, and therefore incapable of consistent happiness.)


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  We are so lucky that, although money is tight and we can't always run right out and get whatever we want when we want it, we have enough to cover all the "needs" and some of the "wants."


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  Emily and I are so lucky to have weathered the storm that almost overtook us in October of last year.

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  And last, but certainly not least, we are so lucky to live in a place where we are surrounded by natural beauty, and so lucky to have eyes with which to see it.

One of *Those* Days

Today was not a particularly fun day. The internet was out so it was a long morning of trying this, trying that, calling Comcast, trying everything again, and then waiting for the repairman to show up. The good part was that he called when he was scheduled to and showed up on time, and the issue seems to be fixed. Huzzah.

So in the interest of trying to make myself destress, I'll post these pics from July, when I was able to get the kayak out on the man-made "lake" we live on.

If you look on a map, it's actually called "K-Section Pond." To me, it's bigger than a pond generally is, but smaller than a lake. We tend to refer to it as "Lake Turner."

Spikey makes an excellent First Mate.

And here's a shot of our house and the dock and deck (scene of many an enjoyable Friday evening for Andy and I this summer) from the middle of the lake.

We're very lucky to live here. :-)

The Fair is a Veritable Smorgasboard, -orgasboard, -orgasboard...

This past weekend, we took the kids to the Bloomsburg Fair. Bloomsburg has one of the largest fairs in PA, and Andy and his family have been going there all his life. This means that even though we live 3 hours from Bloomsburg, we made the trip.
The trip up was a comedy of errors right from the moment we left the house. Knowing we'd be gone for 12 hours or more, we had to figure out what to do with the dogs. Spike, the Jack Russell, is very good when left alone, but that was just too long to leave him. Mika, the 6-month-old German shepherd puppy, can't be left alone for one hour, let alone 12. So we had to bring the dogs along for the ride and leave them with Andy's aunt who lives near the fair.

After 2 episodes of vomit and one episode of poop in her crate, we arrived. Somehow, the dog lived to tell the tale.

But all that was unimportant compared to the good time the kiddos got to have.

And I didn't try these, but I think it's proof that they'll deep-fry anything.