Well, we have a lot of good news today which is wonderful I like it when that happens!

1. Thank you to the man at the post office for helping me get things sorted so that my taxes are finally in the mail! Woohoo! We should be getting a refund within the next month or so. I can’t find my checkbook at the minute and didn’t want to wait any longer to get things in so we have to wait for them to cut us a check, but the taxes ARE FILED, which is good given I started the darn things in FEBRUARY

2. Hubbie’s getting his operation!!!
This is major. He had to go all the way into  the city I used to work in to consult with a different doctor, but the guy took one look at his tonsils and went, “OMG THOSE NEED TO BE OUT LAST MONTH!!” so he’s getting those and his adenoids and his uvula fixed, but at a different hospital than the one the other surgeon was affiliated with so that will hopefully mean good things all round.

3. I’ve started writing again. Well, obviously I’ve been writing for a while because I’ve been doing blog entries and things, but I actually wrote a short fun drabble of a story based on a prompt a friend gave me yesterday and I’m working on another one right now too, but got sidetracked with hubbie coming back with his good news.
The story may be nothing major, and nothing publishable, but it’s a start. It’s more than I’ve written in almost six months and it actually had a beginning middle and end, so that was good, especially because it didn’t suck.  It just flowed out of my fingers into the keyboard the minute I read the prompt I got from Soro.

This is good though. It’s getting me slowly back into writing gear, and hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be in gear enough I can start working on some of the actual stories that I started. I think I’m going to start with one I haven’t touched for a while, an idea I got back in my second semester of college, and I’ll start ironing out it’s direction/outline and then go onto writing the story itself.

I tend to forget that prep work is key when writing anything, making sure you know where things should go and how to get there so that you can actually do what you need to do.

I hope everyone else is having a good week. What are you guys grateful for this week?

I missed doing my thank yous on Thursday this week because I was trying to get my article finished. So, here they are now.

1. I’m thankful for friends who are willing to help out with things. We got a fire pit dug in our back yard thanks to the help of some great friends, and one has also loaned us an axe so that we can make a better and stronger start on clearing out some of the jungle.

2. I’m thankful that my son has started to pick up manners and conversation skills. That he’s actually getting the whole “listening and asking” rather than shrieking thing, for the most part, and also starting to show an interest in potty training.

3. I’m thankful that we can get by. It’s rough some times but we manage it. We have a great place to live and it’s getting better every day.

What are you thankful or grateful for?

It’s been another hectic week but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that I’m thankful for, on the contrary.

1. I’m thankful for doctors who are on top of their profession and genuinely care and don’t make me feel silly for taking my son to see them. The staff at my son’s pediatrician’s place were very good when I visited them yesterday. They’re always kind and compassionate but I was a little apprehensive because this is the first time I’ve seen a particular doctor who works there and I was worried that she would be the “evil bitch” sort of doctor, but instead she complimented me on the way I’d been taking care of the munchkin and told me that I was doing everything right. That’s nice to here because with him being my first child I still have moments of doubt that I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing with this “Mom thing”. Even though they can’t definitively tell me what’s wrong with him I’m reassured that between us and them he’s going to be fine.

2. I’m grateful to our friends who are understanding about the fact that we have a child and will do things to help us out so that we can still socialize despite the fact we have a child and he’s sick. I’m grateful and thankful that I can trust them to be around him and to actually watch out for him while they’re over and am making food for us all or otherwise occupied. That they’re smart and kid-watchful and kid-safe and will entertain him and play with him and aren’t acting “put out” about him either.

3. Last but not least, as you might have guessed by yesterday’s post I’m extremely thankful and grateful and lucky that I’m spending the rest of my life with this man of mine.

My thank you’s are belated this week because yesterday was a very busy day, and also a bit of a downer frustrating day in some ways, so it’s very important for me to remind myself what I have to be thankful for without further a do.

1. I’m thankful for the understanding nature of some of the people that I work with in the business world. Our mortgage broker also works for our insurance company. They’re always reliable for mundane things like auto insurance quotes and other rate quotes, but they’re never pushy. I feel that they truly have our best interests at heart. She called the other day to ask me if my husband and I had thought any more about the mortgage insurance protection plan that she had recommended. I told her that we would like to do it but we’re still struggling financially, and she said she completely understand that there’s lots of “Oh, crap I didn’t budget for that!!” moments when you buy a new house and that she’d talk to us at a later date about it, perhaps after our taxes come in and we have a bit more float money built back up.

2. I’m thankful that we were able to find a friendly good natured cat to become a member of our family and give her a safe and happy home. She’s so laid back she’s practically horizontal. You can do anything, within reason, to her and she doesn’t bat an eye. The munchkin’s hung her upside down and she’s just carefully pulled away and walked off so she can get to higher ground. No hissing. No spitting. No scratching or clawing. I’m very glad she chose us. I love having the cat in our house. I’ve missed curling up on the couch and snuggling with a purring feline.

3. I’m thankful for my medical team. My primary care provider, therapist and psychiatrist are wonderful at working together and helping me get back on an even keel, not sending me for too many tests, and not forcing me to be on medications that I don’t want to be on. They want to work with me to do what I want to do as long as it’s in my best interests to get better, and they actually listen to me when I talk to them. It’s great.

What are you thankful for this week? Let me know. I’d love to hear from other people about good things going on in their life.

So, it’s time again for my Thursday Thank-You’s. The part of the week where I remind myself of all the positive things which are going on. It’s not too hard this week.

1. Thanks to the wonderful people who work at Leesburg Humane Society. I used to work for them when I was in high school. I did my volunteer work for scholarships with them, working every Saturday from 10-3. I took the munchkin up there today for a “kitty play date” seeing as his Dad is allergic to cats and it reminded me what an amazing job the care-takers there do, looking after cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, horses, donkeys, goats and many other animals who have been mistreated or abandoned. It’s doubly amazing with them because they’re a no-kill shelter which means they’re often really over-crowded.
We had a lot of fun with the cats there. The munchkin got to play with many animals who are really friendly as opposed to our skittish neighbor cats. The only thing is that now I’m in kitty-pine mode myself and want to race back up there and bring about ten of them home with me.

2. Thanks to the U.S. of A for saying I can indeed get my citizenship and will soon have the ability to have a say in the running of this country.

3. Thanks to my wonderful family for being here with me. I’m really feeling the love this week, especially as the munchkin is asking for and spontaneously giving kisses and hugs now. It’s so sweet. Especially when he hurts me somehow, like yesterday when he tried to climb up on the couch using my hair and I said, “Ow! You hurt Mummy!” and instead of giggling like it was some big joke like he has in the past he said, “Mummy!!” and patted me on the shoulder and kissed me.

This has been a pretty stressful week because hubbie’s been on another class and feeling really sick and I’ve been helping Mum move, yesterday.  So, it’s very important to me that I write out some thank you’s to try to remain positive.

1. Thank you to the people in line at Walmart who didn’t get mad or angry that my son was throwing a huge tantrum but helped keep me calm and positive that I was doing the right thing not giving in to his demands for a ball when he’d been misbehaving and shared funny anecdotes about their own kids with me to help me out.

2. Thank you to the staff at the Publix Deli for always being nice to us and chatting, and joking with us, especially this week because before I went in there the munchkin got stung by a hornet right before we went in there and they gave him a chicken tender to help cheer him up.

3. Last but definitely not least thank you to my husband who despite being sick and having had no sleep yesterday helped Mum and I get a heavy thing out of the UHaul to store in our garage.

What do you have to be thankful about this week?

I think I’m going to start doing this every week as a good way to remind myself of the good in my life so that I don’t continue with my tendency to focus on the negative.

1. Thank you to the lady being served ahead of us at the Publix deli counter who heard me telling the munchkin that I was sorry I couldn’t give him any thing because they didn’t have any samples out today even though he was asking nicely and gave us a piece of the cheese she was ordering so that he could munch on that.

2. Thank you to the gentleman at Walmart today who brought me his empty shopping cart so that I didn’t have to traipse through the rain to get one and could get the munchkin and my bags into the store easier.

3. I’m also thankful that overall I’m feeling a lot better lately than I have been in a couple of months.