Giving Thanks For Friends

Especially ones who invite us over for a big Thanksgiving dinner, play games all night and send us home with cookie dough. 

Giving Thanks For Our Roof

Our roofs are finally done after a week.  Yahoo!!!  It was really stressful having them here for some reason, the dog is still barking at every little noise.  I think it was having people right outside our windows and on the deck, it felt a bit intrusive and we also felt locked in with their trailer and the dumpster in the driveway blocking the garage.   We put 50 year shingles on so I hope they last 50 years.

Giving Thanks For New Tires For The Van

On Saturday, when we were out driving in our sudden snow storm, it seemed as though we were slipping and having a harder time getting going at the stop lights than other people were.  Even people who were driving little bitty cars.  In the paper it said that there were 200 accidents reported in three hours so I am also thankful that we were not one of them.  When I asked Dad why he thought we were spinning so much he said, so matter a fact like I should have known, that we have bad tires who's tread had almost all worn off.  Imagine walking on ice in leather soled shoes and that is what we were driving on. 

Today, my knight of a husband, promptly took the van in and got new tires put on so the kids and I would be much safer driving.  The plan was to only get two but when the guy looked at them he suggested we get a back tire as well.  Last year we had an unfixable flat and so there was one new tire in the back already and he said it wasn't very safe to drive around with three good tires and one bad.  There was a $50 rebate if you bought four tires and the man was nice enough, since he remembered we had bought the other tire there (one of the benefits of doing business in a small town), he gave us a slip for the rebate.

Giving Thanks For A Husband Who Shops

Dad will always stop on his way home from work to pick items up from a store.  Even though he has worked a 12+ hour shift all night he will stop on his way home to get what we need so that I don't have to.  He even says to call him in the morning if I need him to get anything.  And the best part, he has never once complained about doing it. 

Giving Thanks For Eggs

We are thankful that we are still getting a few eggs a day from our outside chickens that are still in the coop.  Chickens normally need 14 hours of light a day to lay eggs consistently.  There is now daylight for about 10 1/2 hours a day, which makes the nights seem so long.  Furthermore, we are loosing three minutes of precious light every day so we will see how long they can hold out and still lay eggs.  We need to get some things changed around the barn so we can get them moved in there where we can leave a little light on for them all winter.

Giving Thanks For Food In Our Cupboards

While Spark was mowing the lawn, Dancer and I walked along the edge of the field and picked up a few corn cobs left behind after the field had been combined.  We picked the kernels off and gave them as treat to the goats.  I told Dancer that I was thankful that we were not Ruth and Naomi, having to the walk the edges of the field to find food that the harvesters had missed.  Imagine if we had to take this hard, dried, mud covered corn back to the house and try and make it into something for dinner so that we wouldn't starve.  We also had the choice to stop looking because it was cold and the wind had quite a bite to it making our fingers numb.  If this was our only hope for a meal we would have been out there no matter how cold we got.   When I came in to make lunch I thought of how very thankful I am for the food in our cupboards.

Giving Thanks For Christmas Boxes

This year we are once again going to take part in the thankful challenge hosted by South Breeze Farm.  If you want to be a part of it you can click on the button on the side of our blog.  This leads me to the second part of the post, just what are we thankful for?

Today we are thankful for being able to send Christmas boxes to the Lockwood family who are missionaries in Mexico.  Click on their name to find out more about the boxes and their ministry.  The boxes need to be sent soon, real soon, because they are returning to Mexico after being here for the last few months and they are taking the boxes back with them.  Until they leave on the 14th, the boxes can be sent to a U.S. address which is much less expensive than sending them to their home in Mexico.

We had picked up a few things during the year for the boxes but we needed to go shopping to fill them out and make them fun.  The kids and I went into town this afternoon and had a great time picking things out for boys and girls that we thought they would like.  The second thing I am thankful for is the wonderful time we had together shopping and working together on this project.

The really fun part about this project is that they take lots of pictures of the kids getting the boxes and if you are lucky you will get to see who got your box.  This is the girl who got our girl box last year.  We put all the stickers on it so it would be easy to spot on the blog if the child with our box got posted.  We hope she liked what we picked for her box and hope the kids this year like our boxes too.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Leftovers

When I talked to my dad about bringing ham for Thanksgiving, he asked if he should get a big one or a little one.  A big one, I told him, I want leftovers.

I love the time after holidays when the fridge is stuffed with the leftovers because, for a few days afterwards, the cooking is so easy.  We all just open the fridge and take out what we want.  It is like a vacation!

Giving Thanks Challenge - Freezing Temperatures

There are only two reason that I am thankful for freezing temperatures.

1.  All the outside bugs are dead.
2.  My freezer and refrigerator space is expanded.

Our temps are below freezing for at least four months out of the year.  During this time I can take advantage of sales I wouldn't be able to the rest of the year because there isn't enough room in the freezer.  For example, we just bought ten frozen Banquet dinners for $8.00.  I do like these for times when one of us needs to eat at a different time from everyone else or to send to work with Dad.  I can also buy milk when it is on sale because I can just leave it in the garage and bring it in as we need it. 

Giving Thanks Challenge - The Bible

Made by Spark

Giving Thanks Challenge - Never hitting anything with the car

My dad thinks I am crazy and paranoid, but animals wait in the ditch to jump in front of the car when I am driving.  At least once a week something will run in front of me and several times a week I see animals in the ditch.  Birds even swoop at the car like kamikaze pilots.

Deer are the ones that try to get me the most.  Once I even drove through a herd of deer.  That was sort of surreal to be surrounded by deer while going down the highway.  Amazingly, I didn't hit a one, it was like the parting of the red sea.  I have had a skunk run down the middle of the road right in front of the car.  Don't really want to hurry those little guys, if they want to run down the middle of the road you let them.   The alternative stinks! lol.   I have had to wait for entire turkey families to take their sweet time crossing the road and raccoons to finish their dinner of worms before they would move on.  I even have to wait for the chickens to get off the driveway before I can get the car in the garage.  They have no fear of me at all, they must know if they don't hurry I will wait.  Honking doesn't help.  Cats, same thing, have to wait for them to get out of the way.  They even come running when we get home and run in front of the car.

To stack the odds in my favor of not hitting anything, the kids are now experts at watching the ditches as we drive along.  Several times their attentiveness has saved us from calling the insurance company. 

Giving Thanks Challenge - The Library

Oh, the library.  What would we ever do without the library.  Our lives would sure be different.

We are truly blessed that we have access to a huge library system.  There are, I would guess, 15 to 20 branches through out the state so almost anywhere we go we can slip into the library to check out and return books. 

A service we use a lot is ordering books.  The whole library catalog is on line and I can order books at home so I don't have to go through the shelves to find them.  When we get to the library they are all waiting for us to pick up neatly rubber banded together.  They will also ship them to any branch.  This is great because the books I want maybe scattered in several different branches and they ship them all to one place.    If the library doesn't have it their system we inter library loan it, which I can also do at home.  If we can't find it there we can put in request for them to buy an item and usually they do.  We do like to peruse the shelves pleasure reading, but for the books we use for school I order them.  The kids also order a lot of movies this way. 

I am sure over a years time that we check out thousands of dollars of materials.  We do pay late fees but if we watched the due dates closer we wouldn't have any as we can renew materials from home.   The library also saves us from buying books other than the ones we use for curriculum.  I may be one of the few homeschoolers that doesn't like to buy books. I think they start to smell over the years and just clog the house up with clutter.  We do buy some books, ones that we will want for the long haul or that we will absolutely need longer than three weeks, the length of time we can have a book out if someone else has put in a request for it.   If we do buy a book that I know no one is going to ever read again, I donate somewhere when we are done with it.

Our library has a lot of other great benefits but you get the idea that we love, love, our library.   

Giving Thanks Challenge - Traditions

2010 Hand Turkey

Traditions are odd things as you can never predict at the beginning of your family what your traditions are going to be.  The majority of traditions we have in our family are not things that we set out to make into traditions.  A lot of our traditions have evolved from the kids really having a good time at something and them wanting to do it again the next time the occasion arises.  One of our traditions I am so thankful we started is that the kids make a hand cut out turkey each and every year.  Once we had done this a couple of years we realized that it was cool way to keep track of how the kids hands grow every year.  This is the first year that we are unable to tell the difference between Spark and Dancers hands as they are so close in size.  We have all the years hanging on the wall in the hallway to our bedrooms so we can enjoy them all year long.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Kleenex

I am cheap.  I usually say frugal because it sounds so much nicer but really I am cheap.  I don't pay for things with extra frills if something cheaper can do the same job.  Because of my cheapness we use toilet paper for tissues - Kleenex is brand so I won't use that when talking about the toilet paper tissues for legal reasons. 

In the car though we carry a box of Kleenex.  I may be cheap but I don't want to look like a redneck in public by having people look in our car and see rolls of half used t.p.  I can see them thinking we probably stop by a bush instead of finding the nearest bathroom when nature calls.  To set the record straight - we don't. 

This week Dancer and I have been suffering from a horrible, no good, very bad cold.  Toilet paper is hard on the nose.  Very hard on the nose.  It intensifies our suffering.  I broke down and brought the box of Kleenex from the car tonight.  Our noses are thankful for soft Kleenex.  With only three fourths of a box I fear we are going to be thankful for only a short time.

I am thankful for cold medicine as well but poor Dancer can not take cold medicine because it is loaded with food coloring.  Why, why, why do they put coloring in medicine?!!!!  Does it make it taste better?  No.   Look better?  No, and when I am suffering I don't really have an opinion on the color I just want it to work.  She takes Calc. Sulph 6X which is a homeopathic that works, but it doesn't knock you out so you can sleep like Nyquil does.

I am really going to be thankful when our colds are gone.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Warm weather

The temps here have just been heavenly.  The last couple of days have been in the 60's and the nights in the 30's.  This equates into a huge blessing for us because everyday it is nice out the furnace doesn't run and we save on fuel oil that is $2.66 a gallon as of Friday.  As the winter goes on, the price keeps climbing, so we want to buy the whole winters worth now.  It has been a challenge to figure out how we are going to pay for several hundred gallons all at one time.  It will probably be a credit card.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Parents

Dad and I are both thankful for our parents, but even more so that we both still have two parents.  We have lots of friends who have lost one or both of their parents.  This was the case in my family.  My moms parents both died while she was a teenager and my dad's dad died when I was so little I don't remember him.  In Dad's family, this is sort of odd, he had a grandpa die on his fifth birthday and a grandma die on our wedding day.  Of all the days in the year and two of them mark a joyous occasion and a sad occasion.   His last grandma just died last year when his mom was 69 years old.  Not that I expect us to still have parents when we are 69, mine would be 109 years old, but we are thankful for everyday that we have them.

We are also thankful that we got to see three of them this weekend. 

Giving Thanks Challenge - Volunteers

There are lots of volunteers in our life and we are thankful for each and every one of them.  Some of them are very visible and others are not. 

Our 4-H club has two leaders.  A key leader and then the leader that plans the crafts, parties etc.  The leader that does the fun planning is wonderful at it and hears thank you quite often.  The key leader goes to county meetings, fills out piles of paper work, makes sure everyone has their applications etc. in on time, makes the agenda for the meeting and loads of other behind the scenes work that no one sees.  She probably doesn't hear thank you very often.  Lots of parents also step up and fill in when needed at the club and county level.   

Church is full of volunteers.  Those on the worship team, the ushers, greeters, and Sunday school teachers are all very visible.   There are at least twice as many unseen volunteers that make the worship service and the other programs at church run smoothly that we don't see their actual work but benefit greatly. 

Homeschool events are run almost exclusively on volunteer hours.  There would be any homeschool activities if moms and dads didn't step forward to set them up, or in many cases, run them as well. 

Just about everything that we are involved in has at least some volunteer manpower.  We really appreciate it, not only so that these programs can happen, but that their volunteering makes it affordable for us. 

I only hope that the places where we volunteer are a blessing to someone else as much as other volunteers are to us.

Thankful for My Truck - By Dad

Sounds like the title of the next hit country song.

I actually mean the van or the truck or any motor vehicle.  When I drive into town to pick up feed ot run any old errand I think how easy the job is today.  Until about, oh, a hundred years ago going into town was a big deal.

We live between two small towns, one is 5 miles away the other 6 miles.  One trip is flat, the other up and down large hills and over two creeks.  Which one would you pick if on foot, horse or in a wagon? 

Most of the things I drive in for would be too big to carry on foot or horseback so I'd need the wagon.  Not only would the trip take a lot longer, the prep work and work after the trip is heck of a lot more than turning a key.  Obviously, committing to the time and work of the trip would make a person plan more and get more done in each trip.  Considering how much more time and work was involved in every other daily chore the time spent on a trip to town would be even greater.

I really like that when it's -25 degrees, before the windchill, I get to drive around in a little heated capsule with padded seats and stereo music.  Can you imagine riding in an open wagon in any temperature below say 40 dgrees with a blanket on your lap for a couple hours one way?  In the wind, the rain and the snow?  How about in the summer when it's 98 degrees, dry and super dusty out?  Mosquitos, gnat and horseflies?  I think about how many trips I make in a year after dark, and how few I would have dared back then.

I have great respect for the people back then who would go to church every Sunday, and to other church and community events, and to think I skip things because they are too early in the morning or just not exciting enough. 

I think it's true when people comment on how the automobile has changed people and our society.  For the better or worse?  You decide.

PS  My coworkers think it's hilarious that my truck has crank windows.  "I can't believe they still make those."  

Giving Thanks Challenge - Our problems

Yep, that is right, I am thankful for our problems. 

Do I like our problems?  No. 

Would I rather we didn't have any?  Yes. 

But they are what the are.

Dancer sometimes complains about her food coloring allergy and how much she wishes she didn't have it and could eat anything she wanted.  Then we talk about how it is much better than a peanut allergy or a glutten allergy or Crohn's Disease or any other host of diseases.  Any kid in a wheel chair etc. would think pfft, food coloring, I could live with that in a heart beat.  To make her feel better we go over how those foods aren't good choices anyway and this is sort of a blessing in disguise.  But she is 13, so I let her have a bit of a pity party because it does stink.  Our culture likes to give out treats at every occasion, or for every little achievement, that it is a hard thing to be strong about day after day.  The grocery store gives suckers out just for being in the check out line with your mom, what kind of achievement is that?  I got off on a little tangent there so back to the post.

Of course, as a family, like every family, we have our share of problems.  We have been quite blessed and they aren't insurmountable.  We also have a good marriage so that when big things do happen we are able to weather the storm and get through to the other side wiser, braver, stronger and more humble.

I read somewhere once, that if everyone threw their problems in a pile and could pick new ones out, they would probably take their own back. 

Thank you God for our problems and that your mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Electricity

I am so, so, so thankful for electricity.  I am really a huge sally when it comes right down to it. 

I like to like to be cool in the summer and warm in the winter by the flip of a switch.  I wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of an ice box.  I love that water comes out of my tap without having to haul it from the creek to the house.  Carrying around a candle or lantern, especially when it gets dark so early in the winter, doesn't appeal to me.  It really wouldn't appeal to me to go out to the barn with a lantern, it is bad enough to do chores in the winter in sub zero temps much less do it in the dark.   I like all our electric gadgets, like my sound machine so I can sleep at night, the television, the computer, etc.  I really like the clothes washer and drier. 

I could have lived fine in pre-Franklin days since I wouldn't have known what I was missing, but if I got to choose, I would choose now.