Thursday: Is there anything better than getting baked goods, like homemade banana bread, in the mail? I bought two loaves, one with chocolate chips and one without, in an online bake sale and had forgotten about it so it was an even sweeter surprise when it arrived! The chocolate chip (not pictured because I totally ate it all before I even thought to take one) makes a yummy breakfast, especially spread with peanut butter!
Friday: Life has been chewing me up this week. First I find out that in order to keep my job, I’m going to have to pass a test I already (barely) passed in order to get it seven years ago. Tests really stress me out, so needless to say, I’m not thrilled about this. Then on Friday, a situation arose with someone close to me that put me over the edge. I was a bit of a wreck on Friday, so I was hugely thankful for the human kindness that helped me through. While crying at work and after asking for prayers on Facebook, I received a lot of it firsthand. As the kind words and prayers poured in from these dear souls, God comforted me and gave me the strength I needed to drive to this person’s house and have a heart-to-heart. While I wouldn’t consider the situation completely resolved, it is much improved and I’m no longer constantly worrying about this person. So I’m also thankful for that!
Saturday: 11 years of wedded bliss with my soul mate, and cheap fun! We celebrated our anniversary by doing all the free stuff that comes with a $5 River Festival button and did paddle boats, kayaking (Dennis went overboard twice and gave everyone a good laugh–see pictures of that here), and saw the Marshall Tucker Band live! Not bad for $5!
Sunday: Aldi! It’s our first stop for groceries because it’s got the best deals. I remember back when we both worked for the Church of Scientology and were dirt poor, we could live off of $15 a week in groceries from Aldi! We make ten times more than we did back then, but Aldi is still a lifesaver when it comes to our tight grocery budget.
Monday: Books, magazine articles, and Weight Watchers often warns people to watch out for salads at restaurants because although they seem diet-friendly, too often they are fat bombs in disguise. Well, I’m hugely thankful for this means of eating a large portion of fat without going (too far) over my daily Points Plus allowance, thank you very much! Using lettuce and other vegetables as the base of a meal makes for a huge, satisfying plateful of food that is very little calories, so I’m totally cool with drowning it in cheese, beans, eggs, full-fat dressing, nuts, whatever strikes my fancy. If it weren’t for salads, my fat intake would come mainly from the butter in my weekly dessert indulgences, so I’m thankful for these beautiful plates of healthful, satisfying, fatty goodness!
Buffalo Chicken (made with real butter) Salad with (full fat) Blue Cheese Dressing (that I thinned with heavy whipping cream-bwahahahahaha!)
Romaine Salad with Chicken, Cheddar, Apples, Spiced Pecans and Cranberry Vinaigrette (made with no small amount of extra virgin olive oil)
Tuesday: checking off most of my to-do list! I have a small planner that I carry in my purse, and I leave it open at my desk at work so that I can add things to each day’s to-do list as I think of them. By the time I come home, the day is crammed with things to do and usually I just put them off until the next day, and then the next, etc. Today I started my day with a prayer of thanks for the day itself, and asked God for help in using it to its full potential. By the time I went to bed, I’d made more checkmarks than I have in a long time. I really love seeing those checkmarks!
Wednesday: Finally! I finally did a good job teaching the toddler Bible class. Not that I was bad before, but I just wasn’t comfortable and knew I could do better. I did tonight! God gets the glory here as well, because both Dennis and I prayed about it and I know He was there with me because it was so different. The children really listened, they didn’t get bored or frustrated, they were adorably polite (plenty of please and thank yous!), they participated with relish, and I think that I got through to them. Here are the cutie patooties I had in class tonight, working on building arks (the focus of the lesson tonight was Noah and the ark, although since the blocks were out, we also went into the tower of Babel a bit):
You can see how cramped we are and why I was so thankful a couple weeks ago that we’re moving to a new and bigger building at the end of the month!
Oh wait! Can I be thankful for two things on Wednesday? Because I’m also thankful that I met my 5% goal at Weight Watchers today! I’m hoping to be up to ten pounds lost by next week. (I started going eight weeks ago so I’m averaging about a pound a week.) I love Weight Watchers!
OK, your turn! Anything you’re particularly thankful for right now?
Veronica's Cornucopia 