Gratitudinal Finale

Don't ask if that's a work, because the answer's yes. It is now.

Guess what.

I DID IT!!!  I met my own gratitude challenge! I challenged myself to find 10 things every day that I was grateful for, and I made it. I missed a few days, but I've made them all up! I finished the race! Just a note: it's not too late for you fellow bloggers to join...you can do this too!

And now for my final list.

*An easy test. It was a career, vocation, aptitude testy thingy. I didn't want to take it, but I am glad for two things. 1) it was easy. 2) it doesn't matter. The scores won't count for anything, so no biggy.

*Spaghetti with no sauce, just tons of Parmesan cheese.

*Playing Baloney with my sisters, brother and friend.

*Winning Baloney.

*Being cold. Makes you appreciate the warmth more.

*Hot chocolate. It took a bit of improvisation, but it was good!

*Puppies. The same puppies that I blogged about a week or so ago are now over a week old, and I haven't had to stay up one night with them!

*Watching funny videos on youtube.

*Enjoying the whole afternoon with my bestie (blog) who's finally back from the Land of Scarce Internet.

*Flying kites.

*Getting references sent in for college applications.

*Being accepted to the first school! At least, it is to be hoped it is the first. It's not the school I think I want to go to, so hopefully it's not the only school I'm accepted to...

*Seeing a new blog, designed by a good friend of mine. I respect her, and I wish her well in her sojourning!

*Relaxing in a cozy room in front of a cheerfully comforting fire. And feeling like going to sleep.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 20

I am nearly wordless with gratitude right now. Today was vastly blessed.

*There were 49 pageviews. It may be vain to count them and to rejoice over them, but it's an all time high and I'm feeling celebratory!

*I got a complement. Somebody liked my humor. It is always so encouraging to receive a simple, spontaneous complement. Thank you, um...Complementer! You are appreciated.

*I saw my senior pictures! Gah! I have a wonderful photographer. She managed to make me look good, I think! Some of you commented on my photos - Thanks! My daddy was greatly encouraging and loving. These next sentences are exact quotes. "You sure look beautiful. But then, you always look beautiful." "You just can't take a bad picture." Daddy, I love you so, so much. It's not even funny. *Giggle* (I'll choke up about this later.)

*Seeing my precious 3-5th graders in AWANA. Those girls are wonderful. Eating ice-cream with them is about tops. Except, of course, seeing them learn about Christ and grasp His truth.

*Getting to go to a free, choir concert. It's coming up on Saturday. Been a while since I've been on the audience side of a choir concert. :D

*Mailing in my...second?...college application. Only three to go!

*Finishing a reading assignment and some writing requirements.

*Petting my dog.

*Making $33. Always a good feelin'.

*Having the courage to talk in youth group tonight. I asked our leader/coordinater if I could have a minute to challenge everyone to do the Operation Christmas Child boxes - she said yes - and I just spoke about how easy it was and how I wanted our youth group to step up and fill the boxes we had on hand.

Only one day left of my Gratitude Challenge. It's not too late to join, if you were wondering, friends. Don't be shy! Leave a comment if you can and share something you've been grateful for lately.

Sweet Surrender

I prayed today. I needed to. I am stuck in the throws of applying to colleges and it's beginning to rattle me a little. I don't know for sure where I want to go to school, how I'm going to pay for it, where I'm going to stay, what my major will be, or how I'm going to handle leaving home.

My biggest...for lack of a better word - issue...is all of it. In a nutshell, I am worried, because I want to love my major, I want as little debt as possible, I don't want to break my heart and leave all my friends, and I long to glorify God. This is what I prayed.

"God, thank you for my future. Thank you for the time I have now, and for the time I will have later. You have given me college life so that I may glorify you. God, you have given me a mind, finances, time, a life, so that I may glorify you. I thank you that you know my life, that you have a plan to use my life for your glory. God, let me give it all to you. It is only what you have given me first, but I want to give you my time, my money, my mind, and my life; let them serve your purpose.

Take all that I have and use it, Father."

It was such a relief to let go and let my Father remind me that he has it all under control. He has a plan for my life, all I need to do is trust him and follow his Spirit.

Can I get an amen?

Gratitude Challenge: Day 19

Today was good. Really good. I think I still have permafrost in my backside from the bleachers at the football game though. :-\

*Hearing about renowned "DNA" bobby pins. They are reputed to equal roughly 80 regular pins, which is wonderful given my thick hair.

*Eating chili with crackers for lunch. And enjoying my sister's company simultaneous.

*My sister will be in advanced skating with my other sister! She just got an email saying they think she's good enough to skip the last to basic levels and move up to advanced! Woot! Go Little Sister!

*Finishing several assignments.

*Playing Music Box Dancer - again and again and again.

*Trying to overcome writers block.

*Looking at other people's blogs.

*When really amazing gentlemen bring silly girls coats at football games because the silly girls were to silly to bring their own. (Erm...Ahem. Thank you Sir!)

*Knowing that somebody prays for you.

*Having quiet time to just talk to God.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 18

Oh dear. I only have three days left and I shall be done. What shall I blog about then?! P'raps I can find something. I'll be starting a creative writing class (as a student) next semester. That may provide some amusement for ya'll.

Oh right. I'm blogging about today. Right-o.

*Chile. It's the soup kind.

*Watching my sisters ice-skate. They are so graceful! Way to go girls!

*Being told "Come back!" because somebody is excited to see me, rather than being in trouble. (Not like I'm in trouble a lot, you know, but it's just nice.)

*Random crazy people who hide behind banana stands in grocery stores because they are weird like me.

*Hanging with friends.

*Watching puppies sleep.

*Watching a volleyball game. Parts of it were really intense - the ball went back and forth so quickly and the teams played so flawlessly sometimes!

*Tapping the glass screen of my old computer monitor..."Tic tic tic tic tic tic...tic tic. 7 down, three to go!" I'm easily amused.

*Singing about wanting things in Choir. The song was Wanna Baraka. It's beautiful, and you need to come to our choir concert. Period. (Ahem. This only pertains to some of you. You know who you are.)

*Goofing off.

*And going to bed.

Gratitude Challenge: Day Next.

A.K.A. I can't remember which day I'm on and I don't really feel like checking.

It's late, so ya'll just get the basics.

*Frolfing. (Is that how you spell it?)

*Getting some time with my wonderful Heavenly Father during church today.

*Eating chocolate ice cream.

*Squishing five teens (arrrgh, fine. 4 teens and one 20-year-old) into a tiny Chevvy Cavalier. It. Was. Squished. A little.

*Listening to Owl City while cleaning my room.

*Enjoying my room after cleaning and vacuuming all the flies out.

*Standing on the brick ring around a bonfire late at night with my friends.

*Eating (most of) the most ginormous burrito I've ever had in my life! I saved half of it for tomorrow.

*Looking at the stars.

*Seeing one of the proofs for my senior pics.

*Sleep.

G'night!

Gratitude Challenge: Day 16

I knew it was going to happen.

Today was a challenge. I'm feeling a bit discouraged right now. *Sigh* Literally. And I can't think of any reason to be discouraged either. That's the worst part. Agreed? But I am still grateful for some of the things that happened today.

*I wrote an essay and turned it in - within an hour. That is always a good feeling.

*I got some time with Mom.

*My cleaning job went quickly.

*It wasn't cold outside.

*The puppies are beautiful and I haven't had to bottle feed them yet.

*Mom and I laughed hysterically about Hoover. Story: One gloomy midnight last winter, Older Brother and Younger Sister got up to bottle feed puppies. One puppy gulped so much milk that he was 3 OUNCES heaver after the feeding than before! The poor pup was so chubby and full we thought he just might burst, so we didn't dare put him back on the heating pad. We left him on the cement floor for a few minutes to help him in his agony. Mom and I were weighing pups tonight and one of them gained a whole 2.3 ounces, which reminded us of the story from last year. It felt good to laugh so hard again!

*I played a game of Blockus with my sisters and mother.

*I can play Away in a Manger on the hammer dulcimer.

*I only need to think of one more thing.

*Tonight is family night.

OK. Ooookay? Okey dokey! Okay!

O.K.

Ok.

Okay.

Ever found yourself saying any of the above? (Like, all day today? Or at least some time this week?)

It's a fad.

Like, a really old one, ok? Apparently, in New York and Boston in the 1840's, people liked to be weird and spell things wrong. (This is ringing a bell.) It became slang to spell words wrong and then use their abbreviations. For example: no go might become know go and be abbreviated KG. So what began OK? Somebody came up with all correct as Oll Korrect and shortened it to OK.

Unlike the other abbreviations that were fads waaaaaay back then, OK survived and is still OK today.

Coolio?
Coolio. Muchly.

Happy weekending!

Gratitude Challenge: Day 15

Today was a good day, a really really good day. I can sleep well.

*Piano. I love making music. The Easy Winners by Scott Joplin - ragtime. Prelude in G Minor by Rachmaninoff - clllllassical? No. Romantic. I think. Ahhhh. I need to build stamina though. My left arm/hand gets so tired playing my prelude - which I need to work on in case I end up applying for a specific music scholarship...

*Acing a test. Need I say more?

*Sunshine.

*Running across the yard - barefoot - in the frost.

*Finishing up my first college application for-reals. (I know, I know. I put that yesterday. Um, I forgot to stamp the envelope though...)

*Having two more applications ready to go. Almost. I need $20 for the application fee for MSUM and an academic reference for NWC. (Any takers? All you have to verify is that I'm really brilliant - a second Einstein of sorts. Not difficult. *Coughcough*)

*Playing the hammer dulcimer. Yep! It's been hiding under my bed forever. Mom bought it years ago, rather more wishfully than needfully. But I like it! Now that I've got some piano under my belt, I have the "tools" to play it. I figured out how to tune the thing and picked out a few melodies on it. I don't think I really want to put it back either.

*Changing my profile picture. You should look at it. The pooch? Yeah. S'my dog, Rusty (female!!!) Her and I is best of friends.

*My soccer coach. I've played under him for 3 years, ever since he started coaching our team. I didn't play this year though. At the end of the season, it's tradition to get the team together for a potluck. We watch a slide-show of pics from the games, make the coaches give speeches, give them a little gift, and give the seniors medallions. I wasn't expecting to receive a medallion during the ceremony. In fact, I had stuff to do, so I stayed home. My coach talked to mom and said "I can't give out the medallions if all the seniors aren't here! Can't she come? Doesn't she get a medallion?" Mom admitted that she'd ordered one for me and just hadn't felt right honoring me with the others. But for him, she called me and asked me to come. It was so special! And I quote my coach: "When I started coaching, there wasn't much of a team. It was these seniors - they were younger then - that I relied on for a majority of the hard work. They played hard and well and they were the players I depended on."

*Baby puppies.

*Good night.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 14

*I am so grateful for my Daddy. Honestly, with what I have been going through in the last week, that counts as a list of 10 in itself.

But just for you, I'll include some more.

*Amazing friends who explain the rules of swim meets and help make my evenings so awesome.

*Finally having a comment on my last post. :D Thanks Inna!

*Having time to play Prelude in G minor by Rachmaninoff. *Ahem* I played as much as I know, which is roughly 4 measures more than 1/6th of the total.

*Finishing my first complete college app. Sent it in the mail today!

*Taking word quizzes: you select (from a list of four) the meaning of 10 words and I made it through the post-college level "Dynamo". It is estimated that I know some 53,000 words. (Hint: try to find a root word and guess from there. It works well - fooled the website!)

*Blogging. It's been a long day of school.

*Finally having my bedroom back (from bags of clothing that were necessarily stored in here.)

*Watching my friend dive exceptionally well at a diving meet. She received the highest scores!!!

*Eating spaghetti.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 13

I am noticing a trend. I make a noble resolution (such as 21 days of posting about gratitude) and then, on the weekends, I get busy with family night and friends night and Sunday night - typically another friends night - and I end up with four posts a week.

I can still do 21 posts, it'll just take longer. Oh well. I'll be thankful for more days that way. :D

*Listening to other people getting up and knowing I got to sleep in. Weeeeeell, I guess I shouldn't call it sleeping in exactly, I got up at 7:30. They just had to get up and be out of the house by 7.

*Playing Battleship with my favorite little brother. (It's ok. I only have one.)

*Winning my favorite little brother in Battleship!

*Sipping delicious, cold water out of my favorite mug.

*Seeing that my mother brought home a Dragon Fruit. There can hardly be a more thrilling name for a beautiful fruit with a uniquely spiked, peeling rind than Dragon Fruit. Doesn't it just sound like it should tast magical? (See next comment.)

*Eating Kiwi to get Dragon Fruit taste out of my mouth. Turns out Dragon Fruit doesn't tast as appealing as it sounds. We peeled off the rind and there was an imaginive - if not particularly tasty looking - white juicy fruit with seeds that looked like Kiwi seeds scattered evenly throughout. It tasted like a gross, slimy lot of nothing. I was glad to eat the Kiwi.

*Talking to my brother. He's not really living at home anymore, so I enjoy talking to him some evenings and hanging with him when he is home. *Sigh* Miss you Bro!

*Getting two chapters read, one assigment turned in, and realizing I have one less assignment than I thought! It was a good day of school.

*Talking about my senior recital with my piano teacher. I've got special plans!

*Actually being able to remember all 7824 notes of my 24 Major and minor arpeggios and 24 Major and harmonic minor scales. The average number of notes I played in a minute was 306...but when I was playing my fastest (sixteenth notes at 100 bpm) it was more like 400. Not to brag or anything.

*That soon, we'll have a roaring fire in the fireplace downstairs and I can sit there to blog! Yay!

Gratitude Challenge: Day 12

What a beautiful day. A bit cold, p'raps. But still good.

*I followed a rabbit home. He was a good Christian rabbit. Even under the heavy pressure of headlights and and a Saturn bearing down on his furry behind, he would not stray to the right or to the left. He swerved in both directions a couple of times, but his faith held fast and he always ended up running straight down the center of the road. Ridiculous bunny. I didn't hit him, for those of you who were wondering (or had young children reading over your shoulder.)

*I'm so grateful for older women in the church kitchen (my daily lunch accommodations) who ask "What are you having for lunch?" and are horrified to hear "Oh, just toast." I quote: "Oh! You can't have just toast! Here, would you like some of my corn chowder? It's nice and steamy hot. Toast isn't enough for a good lunch." Mmmm. Corn chowder is absolutely amazing, especially when you were expecting toast with jam and ramens.

*Texting friends who have senses of humor.

*A hilarious choir teacher. She's so adorable. :D

*Singing "La, Pensiero" in choir. It's a famous opera piece from Nebucco (Nebuchadnezzar) about the Israelites longing for their homeland. It's a beautiful song, and completely in a major key. So cantabile! (Singable)

*Flash mob discussions. Here's what was discussed: "We should do a senior flash mob instead of a senior prank!" "We should do a flash mob as a choir when we're in New York! Right in Times Square!!!" Etc. etc. I. Cannot. Wait.

*I finished my midterm. And I don't even know what I got on it! It had short answer questions though. Argh.

*Our choir sectional was slightly hilarious. Reese said she had exciting news for us, but she couldn't tell us what it was. We simply told her we wouldn't sing unless she told us. We won!

*Seeing the moon through my bedroom window.

*Driving a different way home.

*And singing with the radio the whole way.

*Teasing my dad.

*Getting tucked in by me daddy.

Good night.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 11

Wow. I'm blessed. I just keep coming back to that. There are just so many little things.

*I got to wash my hair.

*My sister let me shower first.

*I get to play an amazing song for my senior recital. Prelude in G Minor by Rachmaninoff. In case you were wondering. You probably weren't. Now you know anyway.

*There are so many other people who are grateful for little things too! It's amazing!

*I have a dog, and she loves me as much as I love her. Just watch her follow me around and tell me otherwise.

*I have a test tomorrow. And you're thinking "Now she's gone off the deep end." Nope. That happened ages ago. Better swimming down here.

Actually, it's a chance for me to prove that I'm learning something - to myself and to my professor. And tests are kind of exciting things, don't you think? Probably not. *Sigh*

*I have six things to be grateful for. That's a lot. Cool.

*It is amazingly beautiful outside. I just can't get enough of fall! Every time I think about it I get that runny-cartwheely-jump-up-and-downy feeling an' I wanna go jump in a pile of leaves and play with me pooch and ride me horse and Ooooooooooh! Fall is just so amazing.

*Praying for people. There is something indescribable about going into the presence of a holy and loving God and saying "I'm not here for me. Please, please be with this friend/family member and bless them.Carry them close to your heart God, and carry their heart in your hands. Bind up their wounds. Be with them and give them the faith and the peace they need." I want those people to know that their cause is being petitioned at the foot of their heavenly Father's throne, and that the cause will not be dropped until an answer is received. And then to say, "Thank you, God, that you have answered me already."

*I don't have to get up at 5 tomorrow. (Others in my family do. Touche.)

*I got to go into the 5th and 6th grade AWANA T&T room tonight and help listen to verses during handbook time. I. Love. Those. Girls. About five of them gave me hugs right off the bat. They're all so energetic and wonderful! I can't wait for next Wednesday evening.

Gratefully yours,
Miz Fingers

Gratitude Challenge: Day 10

I had a full day. Good day to be grateful. And an easy day to be grateful. For just about everything.

*Sunshine.

*Friends.

*Horses. Galloping with my brother riding behind me, trotting while riding behind my friend, such joy. Ahhh.

*Reading crazy books about children falling off giant chess boards and flipping coins as to whether the sun will rise or set.

*Flipping to the next chapter of a fairy tale and reading the chapter title: Enter the Pea. Is that not fabulous?

*Eating potato cheese soup. My absolutely favoritest soup ever. And our first soup this fall. Mmmmm. So cheesy. So good. *Dies of amazing soup.

*Playing with puppies in the light of the full moon. With sisters and brother and friend.

*Loving people. (In response to the comment about No. 5 on yesterday's list.)

*Leaving my Bible open in my bedroom all day long. Whenever I went in there, it was just encouraging to look at it.

*Eating Chocolate cake. Always a plus.

*Playing games on the trampoline in the sunshine. I didn't win, but it was a blast playing anyway. (Of course it was, it was a word game!)

*Attempting to do handstands. They kinda failed.

It was a good day.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 9

At least, it's sort of day 9. It's supposed to be day 11. Oops. I'll make it a longer list, ok? Ok.

*Crazy friends who watch crazy movies with me at crazy hours of the night. And aren't afraid to do it again.

*The game Scattergories. We played this on Friday night as a family. Then on Saturday, we played it again and ended up rolling the same letter for some of the same lists as the night before, which gave some of us an unfair advantage, I'll admit.

*Eating breakfast burritos, sour oranges, crisp grapes and caramel rolls for supper. Without having to do the dishes. (Thank you Debbie. You rock.)

*Watching my sister research cameras in search of the perfect, (affordable) first (professional) camera. She's been waiting forever for this!

*Knowing that people love me.

*Knowing that some few people trust my brain. Sometimes. I need the reminder that I can trust the organ too. :D

*Realizing that I didn't have to study as much as I thought I did.

*Talking to my friend on the phone on Sunday afternoon. A long time.

*Being in suspense. (I haven't seen my senior pics yet, and it's driving me crazy. A good kind of crazy.)

*Thanking God for the full moon.

*Looking at the full moon some more.

*And some more.

*And thanking God some more.

*Knowing that I have one WHOLE SONG memorized for my senior recital. (Piano, fyi.) It's a ragtime two-step by Joplin. Called The Easy Winners. Nice cocky title, that. Just my style.

*Believing that tomorrow will be a good day.

Happy Late-Monday-night-and-Tuesday, folks!

Gratitude Challenge: Day 8

Mmmm. I am just the right kind of hungry. It's complicated...I've worked hard (scholastically - which still counts) and it's a late supper, and the wind is blowing and leaves are raining while the sky keeps breaking promises to follow suit. My little brother is wrestling with my dad (still convinced he can win) and my sisters are content (as in, not talking to me. Maybe I'm the content one.)

All this with the knowledge that home-made pizza will be ready any minute.

*I love home-made pizza. It's never normal. Dough so sweet, you could eat it alone.Put your normal sauce back in the cupboard and take that can of chunky vegetable. Pepperoni? Try hamburger. Replace Mozzarella cheese with Colby Jack, finely shredded. Color (in the lines) with random pepper chunks. Throw on a bit of mushroom. Apply garlic (lightly) oregano (with a delicate hand) and onion bits (rather heavily because the flavor is less obvious.)

*Eating more than I should. And not really caring. Just this once.

*Family nights.

*Scatergories. One of the bestest games ever.

*Late nights.

*Blogging anyway.

*Rolling up my pant legs.

*Wearing really random, cool hats. One at a time, of course.

*Reading super cool books that keep me...I don't know, cuz I never really sit in a seat. It's always on the floor or on my bed or in the car. Hmm. Well, really super cool books anyway.

*Trying to fit 5 people into the bathroom to brush their teeth and laughing and spitting and getting grossed out. In case you haven't noticed, I have a big family, and we're all really weird. We like it that way. If you know us personally, you probably like it that way too, or you wouldn't know us this personally.

Cheers to really big, really weird families! Or ever families that are less big and more weird, or more big and less weird and still like us. I like ya'll too. :D

Gratitude Challenge: Day 7

Life. Is. Good.

And it's entirely due to God's grace. A couple of reasons I know that's true:

*I have sisters who love me.

*I have hilarious friends.

*We have hilarious conversations.

*That I can talk dead-seriously about things like majoring in chickens and yard work to perturbing images of hippos in pink wetsuits.

*That I can sit up late at night and hear the music of silence. It sounds somewhat like the wind blowing and the fridge running and typing on me laptop and absolutely nothing else.

*That when I randomly looked at a model in an advertisement, she had the same haircut as me. (I am not paranoid about weight and name brand clothing etc., but it's encouraging to see a model showing off the same style and color hair as you have.)

*That I had cheese and broccoli for supper.

*For goosebumps. Because they necessitate blankets and cocoa and fires in fireplaces and good books and no homework.

*For a mumsy who likes to play with my hair.

*For sleep.

Goodnight.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 6

Today in youth group, we talked about life not being fair. Mom asked what I thought about it. *Ponders* I don't know. I guess I enjoy life. I mean, it's good. I immediately thought of my challenge. Does that have anything to do with my outlook? Or is it the other way around? Whatever it was, I realized...once again...that I am more blessed than I even understand. Thus these posts, I suppose!

*I am more blessed than I know, and my heavenly Father likes it that way. Especially when I run up and thank him!

*For a choir teacher who understands what dog days are all about. We didn't sing today, which she is usually a drill sergeant about. We went outside and sat in the sunshine. Well, some of us sat. Mostly the cute girls watched the football boys playing with a big, rubber bungee strap. They were trying to catapult the littler fellas into the football practice mat.


*For the knowledge that the flies plaguing my life out will die tomorrow at the mercy of the black hole. Its Latin name is Vacumeous.

*For Friday nights. I know, it's Wednesday. Duh. But Friday cometh, ye scholars! Rejoice! Unless you have homework. Then still rejoice, because there's Saturday and Sunday afternoon.

*For being grateful for so many things, I can't remember all of them.

*For my World Music class. Some of the stuff I hear...I tell ya. "When the dance is over, Sweetheart, I will take you ho-ome in my one-eyed Ford. Way-ah ah-ah oh ay..." I cracked up just listening to this! It's a love song, and you just read the one and only line. :D

*For text messages. For LY's and JK's and LOL's and ROFL's and dude-speak.

"Dude." [Greetings, friend.]
"Dude." [Greetings.]
"Dude?" [What do you think of the media's take of Michele Bachmann's run for Republican nominee for President?"
"Dude." [I think they're biased and should take into consideration Bachmann's background and campaign thus far.] (This is not a political opinion - just an example of Dude-speak.)

You get the drift? Redicuhlous, wot? Pardon....*ahem*..."Dude?"

*For parents that understand me, and encourage me, and support me, and tell me how much they love me.

*That I can still remember the fingering c sharp harmonic minor scale.

*And the a flat harmonic minor scale, which is harder.

*And the f minor harmonic scale, which is harder yet.

I don't think those should really count as three, but hey! It's my blog. I make the rules.

It only counts as two.

*For sending in my first college application. It's a good feeling.

*For friends of my mother's that like me enough to say "You can't graduate," when what I know they're saying is "I don't want you to go off to school!" I offered to one friend that I could go to school in the town she lives in. Unfortunately, the population there is prolly under 100. The nearest legit public school is 10 miles away. Heh. Heh.

*That my friend is doing this with me. I'm not alone! Yay!

*For having more than 10 things that I can actually remember to be grateful for.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 5

*Reading in bed.

*Dancing around like a child and trying to catch leaves as they fall off of the trees. Even the dog was giving me a funny look.

*Realizing that I might just have enough money to go on a choir trip!

*Knowing that I have friends.

*Eating a midnight snack at 11:21.

*Entertaining my parents. Primary mode of entertainment was teasing. They were trying to go to sleep and I was wide awake, so it was highly amusing for me to tease them while they were helplessly wishing I would leave. (They were laughing also, just so you know. I'm not usually as cruel as I sound.)

*Reading aloud as a family and talking and laughing about it the whole time. The book is Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo. You oughta read it too. Srsly.

*Seeing the moon.

*Howling at the moon. It's an inside joke and an old tradition with a particular friend. Sorry. *Turns and raises hands to mouth* "Aahhhooooooo!"

*Knowing that you are giving your computer a really funny look right after reading that last statement. You should see your face.

*Giving a piano student her first lesson (with me) and knowing that she's more advanced than any of my others. Woot!

*Going to sleep. I am going there shortly, and I hope it is not a long journey. Sometimes it is farther and more ardorous than otherwise. Hopefully not tonight - I'm not up for a long trek.

Gratitude Challenge: Day 4

It's amazing what you can find to bless you.

*My book was in at the Library, and it promises to be a good one.

*Driving past a forest of gold. The birch trees were in their glory. Through the haze of their slender boles I caught the outline of a strong, glorious oak. Loveliness!

*Passed my first major test of the semester!

*I have a few hours just to do nothing, if I so desire.

*I think I'm going to go read in the park. :D

*This morning we sang Sure On This Shining Night Arr. Rene Clausen. It's a beautiful SATB piece. "Sure on this shining night of star-made shadows round, Kindness must watch for me this side the ground, on this Shining night. ...I can't remember the rest of the words. We don't sing it straight like that though, it goes much more beautifully.

*The whether was...is...perfect.

*I gotted to study outside.

*I found a book that had my name - my name! - as the title! (Not Storyfingers, Gianna.)

*My friend/mentor/virtual second Mom has an amazing and spiritually encouraging blog that I am about to look up.

*I am almost done with this post which means I can go read.

*I am blessed by the gratitude of others. Check out this link to a post of blessings!

Toodles!

Be grateful!

Gratitude Challenge: Day 3

Oops.

I missed a few days. Boo for busyness.


I'll keep going. Day three can be today and yesterday combined.

*I love ice-cream. Yummy.

*I love ice-cream even better when you have a ginormous bowl with chocolate on top and you get to eat it watching a chick-flick with your amazing mother and fabulous sister. Wonderfulness.

*I love the new movie, Courageous. God is clearly at work when a church can produce a strongly Christian movie that has you laughing breathlessly one moment and sobbing the next.

*When the pastor of your church says something that makes sense and speaks to you where you are.

*Autumn has cast a spell-binding charm over me with the richness of her color pallet. I am ecstatic in this season.  

*The sound of dried leaves dancing gently to the grass in the middle of a fall afternoon.

*Realizing that I can enter the throne room of my Holy and Almighty God - and run into his arms singing and laughing!

*Realizing that that reaction thrills God!

*Having friends over for supper - making homemade pizza - eating outside? - enjoying fellowship.

*Having my older brother home.

"Thank you Jesus for the beauty and wonder that surround me."