Thankful Thursday

Being present is something I've always struggled with.  This is an exercise for me in taking the time to notice the things throughout the week that I am thankful for.  Not the big things like my family but the little things it's easy to miss in the hustle and bustle that is life.  Please join along if you'd like and leave a link in the comments.

I am thankful for our Lego Christmas buildings.  This week has been full of Christmas spirit with quiet evenings in front of the fire and most of that time has been spent working on our Lego Christmas pieces.  My mom had a Christmas town when I was little and every year we would pick out a new piece for her collection.  I loved unwrapping each building year after year.  Three years ago I realized that Lego was making a new piece each year to be part of a Christmas Village.  Garrett's obsession with Lego's was beginning to take off and although the price was a little more than what I wanted to commit to spending each year, I couldn't think of a better tradition to start.  

I'm happy to report that 3 years into this tradition, it is my favorite Christmas tradition next to picking out the Christmas tree.  It is my favorite early December package.

This year we've spent every night since Sunday sitting around the fire sorting pieces (apparently I made the mistake last January of taking them apart and mixing them up with the rest of our lego pieces.)  We even got some help from my sister, brother-in-law and nephew this year.  I'm happy to report that Mike is putting the finishing touches on the Toy Shop as we speak.  This year we have 3 pieces which I think qualifies us to set out our "town" on the dining room table rather then the mantle we used last year.

Day 30

Today I am thankful for my month of Thankful.  While I didn't get to post everyday on time and I'm finishing this up a bit late, I am happy to have stuck with it and not thrown in the towel when I fell a few days behind (which is my typical MO with this blog).  It was interesting for me how much more I paid attention to things throughout the day to decide what I would write about.  There were plenty of days when I woke up and found 5 things before noon that I was thankful for and I'm not sure I would have noticed some of them if I hadn't been focused on this challenge.  There were also plenty of rotten days in between where I really had to search to find something other than a glass of wine to be thankful for.  So I'm thankful for this challenge and the way it cast a different light on things throughout my day.  I think I'm going to try to continue on with a Thankful Thursday to focus on things throughout my week that I am thankful for.

Day 29

Today I am thankful for Friends & Farms.  This great company has put together weekly baskets of local meat, seafood, produce, dairy, eggs and bread that I pick up every Thursday.  I've been on my mission to eat locally for well over a year now.  Up until I joined Friends and Farm (over 2 months ago), it involved a lot of running all over the place to get meat and produce and my dairy and bread were still coming from the grocery store.  The people at Friends and Farm have taken a lot of the work out of it and they are beyond accomodating to work with.

This weeks basket included smoked ham, fluke, milk, drinkable yogurt, apple cider, a loaf of breakfast bread (we chose an amazing cranberry orange pecan), arugula, potatoes, pears, turnip greens, parsnips and cauliflower.

Day 28

No picture today but I am thankful for this meal planning list.  I found it on Pinterest (oh, I am thankful for Pinterest almost every day) and have been using it for over a year to plan out my meals and weekly shopping list.  I find the meals on my (over organized) pinterest boards, fill them in and add the ingredients to the shopping list.

Day 27

Today I am thankful for my Birch Box.  This is my first one and it's totally worth the $10 a month to get a pretty little package in the mail, the awesome samples inside are just an added bonus.  I've never been one to splurge on high end products but it's nice to get a few things each month to pamper myself.

Day 26

Today I am thankful for a little extra time in the mornings.  We don't always get it but it is such a nice treat when we do.

Day 25

Today I am thankful for an amazing group of girlfriends who took me in when I transfered highschools my Junior year.  A move in the middle of highschool could have been tramatic but this group of girls took me into their group and have been there for me unconditionally every day since. 

Our group has grown over the years with the additions of babies (mine and now finally some of theirs) and partners and it's been fun to watch this Holiday dinner of our evolve over the years.  I'm bummed I couldn't find the one from 2007. 

2012

2011

2010

2009



2008?



Day 24

Today I am thankful for naps.

Day 23

Day 23 I am thankful for Black Friday and the way I chose to celebrate it with my family.  I really have mixed feelings about this day which I could go on about for hours but in the end, I chose to go out this year.

I understand how a lot of people feel about the day and the irony of the fact that the day we are supposed to sit back and be thankful for what we have is-smashed-up-on-top-of the most commercial day of the year.  I am with everyone on this and have been exasperated by the fact that more and more stores are opening ON Thanksgiving and tons of people across our country are leaving their families immediately after dinner to go wait in line to save $50 on a TV.  They are trampling each other in stores to save $5 on a doll and the message that this gives their children is not one I am looking to pass on to my child. 

This year I chose to not go to any store that was opening on Thanksgiving and I'm even taking it a step further by saying that I will not give these stores any of my money this holiday season.  I was really moving towards doing as much of my shopping with small businesses, on Etsy and on-line so it just seemed natural for me to take a stand and vote with my dollars.  That being said, my sister-in-law and I both agreed that we enjoying the getting up early and waiting in line and feeling like we saved a few dollars on something we planned on buying anyway.

I recently dusted the sewing machine my mom gave me last year and decided to let Garrett pick out some fabric for a new pajama set.  While I know that handmade is not always cost effective, I was surprised at the total when we hit the checkout.  I decided if I was going to make a hobby out of this, I would need to start stocking up on fabric when it was on sale.  Cue Jo-Ann's Black Friday sale.  The store opened at 6pm and had a great sale on flannel fabric as well as some things my sister-in-law wanted.  We roped my little brother into coming along and the negotiation involved a quick trip to Dick's for their buy one get one sale on ammunition.  We made fun of ourselves all morning for the fact that we got up at 4am to get ammunition and fabric and joked that anyone who saw us would be convinced that we were doomsday preppers.  Imagine our surprise when we pulled up in front of the Jo-Ann Superstore to find a line at least 20 people deep.  Thankfully, everyone was more than friendly, no one got trampled and I stocked up on enough flannel to make all the littles in my family pajama bottoms for Christmas. 

Day 22

Day 22 was Thanksgiving and I am thankful for my amazing family and our wonderful traditions that circle around this holiday.  Thanksgiving was my grandmother's favorite holiday.  She spent the entire day on Wednesday baking pies and preparing for the big day.  Thursday morning she rose long before the sun to get the turkey in the oven and she was cooking up a storm when everyone arrived Thursday morning.  My family eats Thanksgiving "dinner" early, usually aiming to have all of the food on the table by 1.  By 2 o'clock, my grandmother was usually over the whole scene and would disappear into her bedroom for an afternoon nap. She thought she was being slick but as I got older I realized that sneaking away for a nap had more to do with getting away from the chaos of daughters, son-in-laws and grandchildren then it did with lack of sleep. 

This was the second Thanksgiving without my grandmother and although she hadn't run the show in a handful of years because of her dementia, I'm not sure I'll ever get use to her not physically being there.  It will always be the time of year that my family thinks and talks about her the most and even with her gone it still remains a day filled with too much food and just the right amount of family.



It's been at least 3 years since we've all been together at Thanksgiving