I thought I might take a moment to throw up a post for those of you (hi Grandma!) who don’t use Facebook or Instagram. I have been doing 30 Days of Thanks there but haven’t had too much time to blog so I’m going to play a little catch up on blogging my thankfulness from the past two weeks. Here it goes:
Day 8 From Facebook: Today I was thankful for play time with my girls at a local science space. I have been way too busy the last few days and it was nice to just be with them.
I seriously love the Adventurarium which is a free place for children to explore and learn. What a great thing in this town!
Day 9 From Facebook: I’m thankful for exciting beginnings. We had our first public information session for the Gillette Charter School Initiative and had some interested prospective parents come as well as a reported from the Gillette News Record. So glad that this idea is being so well received.
Day 10 was an Instagram double feature:
“I have a neat game,” she says, “let’s play get dirty in the sand.” thankful for fresh air and my biggest girl who can take my mind off of anything.
and thankful for quiet moments snuggling with my littlest girl.
Day 11: I was thankful for the beauty which surrounds me.
Day 12 I shared this link on Facebook and I said:
I’ll sign on with this one: I am thankful for the birth control which enabled me to get through college without the stress of an unplanned pregnancy, which enabled me to spend the first years of my marriage getting to know my husband and getting settled into a state far away from our families, and which enabled me to space my children 3+ years apart so that I could focus as much of my attention as possible on one baby at a time. I am also thankful for birth control’s abilities to regulate my crazy mood swings, keep acne at bay, and lessen my monthly visits. And finally, I am thankful that birth control exists for those of my friends who have had the unfortunate experience of having to deal with endometriosis; through them I have seen how awful it is and I am thankful there is a medication that can help them avoid the worst outcomes associated with their condition.
If you have followed me for a time, you know that I experienced an unplanned pregnancy at 16 and it had a profound impact on my life. I only wish that I had information that The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy is working so hard to make available to our young people. Birth control is a rockin’ amazing thing and should be available to all people both in and out of marriage.
Day 13:
I was thankful for my assortment of baby carriers and the miracle which is babywearing…which lets me do housework and help Zara take a nap all at the same time. 🙂
Day 14: I was thankful to have the finances to buy new tires for my car ahead of my first solo road trip with the girls.
Day 15 was my big road trip down to Denver to check out Waldorf-inspired charter schools. I didn’t get to spend much time at the school I went to on Friday but that day was more than made up by the afternoon and evening spent with one of our friends from Gillette who moved down to Denver. They were kind enough to let the girls and me crash at their house Friday night and that was my gratitude for the day:
kind friends and a wonderful place to crash on our trip.
I also very much enjoyed Nora’s excitement over her first “sleepover” with her friend little Miss M.Of course I had to be the crazy excited mom and take a ton of pictures…because they are just so cute.
Day 16: Saturday started out great. I was able to visit this really amazing Waldorf-inspired charter school in Wheat Ridge. After the open house, the principal and one of the teachers spent an hour and a half answering my questions about the school and some of the details about running a charter school. I am unbelievably grateful for their assistance and the on-going support that they offered to me and the other members of the Gillette Charter school Initiative. After visiting the school, I headed back to my friend’s house to get Nora and drive home, but I was greeted by an unpleasant surprise: the slight sore throat Nora had mentioned when she first woke had bloomed into a high fever. Long story short, I was nervous about driving 5 hours through the middle of nowhere with a sick little one and I ended up taking her to an urgent care center in Loveland.
When I checked her in there, her temperature was 105.5F and she was definitely not feeling great. They did a strep test since she was reporting a sore throat but it was negative. They gave her some Motrin to bring down the fever and then they sent her to the emergency room since the doctor at urgent care couldn’t figure out what was wrong and either wasn’t able to or wasn’t willing to give me the OK to drive home. My gut told me the emergency room was overkill, but I was having a hard time getting a hold of Chris and this bug got in my ear that it was better to be safe than sorry. Of course, the ER did turn out to be an unnecessary stop as she was responding well to the medicine and her fever went down (thankfully!), so we grabbed a quick dinner and then I drove us home four hours later than intended. It was a bit of a rough drive — I pretty much ate all the way from Denver to Gillette just to keep myself awake — so in the end after that crazy day I was most thankful to be home.
Day 17: Chris was home (his first full day off in two weeks) and we spent the day in pajamas trying to recuperate from illness, driving, and being over-worked. Nora’s fever finally broke around noon (we never gave her any more medication after that does at urgent care), and I was thankful for a quite day all together as a family.
Day 18 was this blurry Instagram:
I was mentally complaining about all the laundry I have to do today, but instead I decided to be thankful for more than enough clothes to wear, running water, electric washing machines and dryers, soap I didn’t have to make, time during the day to do this. It’s all about perspective.
Day 19: Nora had a relapse and start coughing in addition to running another fever and I was thankful that I didn’t have to worry about missing work to take care of my biggest girl. I’m so grateful that Chris has made it possible for us to take care of our girls in our own home, so that when they are sick I can focus on taking care of them without worrying about anything else.
Day 20: Zara woke up with a cough too (poor second child exposed to so many more germs than her sister) and Nora was still under the weather so we continued our week of pajama parties and resting around the house. We decided to have pancakes for lunch which I topped with homemade cranberry sauce as a way of boosting everyone’s vitamin C.
And as silly as it sounds, I was reminded of how thankful I am for cranberries. Seriously– I love them. They are so delicious and they warm my heart because they are one of the few fruits that everyone still eats seasonally instead of at all the wrong times of year from very far away. Of course, these cranberries were not yummy Nantucket cranberries, but I was thankful for them nonetheless.
And that brings me to today, Day 21: Today I had a P.E.O. meeting and I was reminded of how thankful I am for this wonderful organization.My sisters here have been so welcoming. Even before we moved to Gillette, they were sending me information about the town and making sure I felt at home. I officially transferred my membership to chapter AS a couple months ago and I so very much enjoy all of the women I have met. I didn’t realize how much I had missed attending meetings when we lived in Nantucket (there were no other P.E.O.s there). Not only does P.E.O. do the wonderful work of making education available to women and girls across the world, but it also is a great group of women who all love and look out for on another. I am so thankful to be part of this sisterhood.
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