Thankful Thursday

[Don't mind my old watermark... I'm too lazy to fix it.]
1. My younger sister, D. I don't talk as much about D because she is not really online and doesn't follow my blog. But today is her special day, so I wanted to mention her! Happy birthday, D! D is the social butterfly of the family, with a carefree personality, even in hard times. She's also super photogenic and always willing to let me practice on her. (Unfortunately, both of my sisters and their families live about 1,300 miles away from me, so I don't get to practice on them very often. :( )

Recently I was remembering a story my mom always tells about something D said as a little girl. Apparently we were at a gas station and there was a woman wearing a very small shirt--possibly a halter top? So D, age 3, shouts out the window: "Hey, lady! Is that a swimmin' suit or a shirt?"* Ha! And she's still very willing to talk to strangers. She takes after my dad and will do a sales pitch to someone in the store when they are considering a product she loves.

*Only, in her little 3-year-old voice it was more like, "Hey, rady..." and "shirt" was said with a sort of New York accent.


[D and me. That was probably the last time I was taller than her. :P]

2. Time off. I'm not in choir this year, and yesterday I was reflecting on how it changes my Wednesdays--and really, my entire week--when I don't have that evening commitment. I'm pretty greedy when it comes to down time, but that's because it's never really "down." I always have lots of stuff to catch up on in my home and online (which probably sounds lame), and when I have too many outside commitments I feel cheated and stressed. I'm so much happier when I have open evenings after work. Do I always use my time wisely once home? Hardly! But it changes my attitude and I begin to be more productive when I feel I can afford to.

3. A great weekend. Last weekend went really well. The weather was fairly cooperative, my drive home went smoothly, and overall it was just a happy time.

4. Sunshine. We've still had decent weather. I guess since summer began late, it's staying later. Fine by me!

5. Getting dreadful tasks over with. This week I finally got something done that I had been putting off for months, and it's a huge weight off my shoulders! Also--and of course--it wasn't as bad as I had feared.

6. Games. I love playing fun games. :) (I'm sure I'm repeating myself a lot in this list.)

7. Getting caught up at work. Hopefully I'm not speaking too soon!

8. Getting a monitor calibration system at work. Hey, it's something I've been wanting forever, so it's nice that we finally made the purchase. It's going to help a lot.

9. Starbucks iced tea.

10. Motivation. I often lack it, so it's awesome when I have some. I don't even know where it comes from half the time, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Now I'll go back in the archives and dig out a September photo from two years ago, just to add some color to this post.