Thankful Me

  A wax-coated bulb and its red amaryllis blossom Don't worry. The post title isn't some poetic description of my mental state; it's just a comment on the weather. This week it has seemed that I was in Washington or Oregon, only with snow. It has been mostly cloudy all week, with a perpetual drizzle of snow. Yesterday the sun did shine for a brief moment, but the light snowfall has returned again. While the near-constant snowfall is getting a little old. . .  1. I am thankful for the snow. It's going to take a lot of water to get Utah out of drought conditions, and the more snow we get now, the better. If the ground is already saturated by the time the snow runoff starts, that just means more water in the reservoirs. I've already told John we'll need to plant more trees/shrubs this spring, since the ground (mostly rocks) should be (relatively) easy to dig. 😊 2. I'm thankful to live where there are four seasons. Though Mele Kalikimaka is a fine song, I do pr...

  A beautiful stained glass mural showing Jesus Christ healing a man. Various other Bible stories are also depicted. About this time last year, John and I had booked a vacation that we ended up having to cancel for reasons beyond our control. At the time we canceled, we were given the option of a refund of part of the money, or we could get all of the money refunded if we took the airfare portion as a credit. We chose the credit, but failed to read the fine print well enough. Surprise, surprise, the airfare credit expired within a year, and was only good if we booked a hotel package at the same time. First world problem for sure, but we needed to book a vacation. We thought we'd just take a quick trip in January to somewhere warmer than Utah, and had decided on San Antonio, Texas--somewhere neither of us have been. I researched the trip, but didn't hit the book button. When I returned to the site a few days later to book, the cost had increased quite a bit. No offense to Texas,...

  a Christmas tree with all of the decorations placed on the upper half of the tree Hello, my friends! December just flew by. We had the privilege of having our grandchildren come and stay with us over the holidays. The tree in the photo above started out more traditionally decorated, but our toddler granddaughter decided that we had too many ornaments within her reach, so by the time the grandchildren went home, the tree looked like it does in the photo above. I don't imagine Better Homes and Gardens will be wanting to do a photo shoot anytime soon, but I don't care. We made memories, and that is what matters.  Let's jump right in to the Ten Things of Thankful: 1. I'm thankful for the chance to see almost all of my children, and all of my grandchildren, in December. I really love my family.  2. I'm thankful also for extended family and gatherings we had over the holidays. 3. I'm thankful for technology that allows family to stay in touch even when we aren't...