So Much to be Thankful For

Each year at this time I like to reflect on the things I have to be thankful for. I have so many that I don't know where to start! And I'm bound to miss a few, but here are the bulk of them:

I am thankful for a God who loves ME, of all people. I am, after all, just a speck of dust in the Great Scheme of Things, but He sent His Son to die for me. That is something that I will spend an eternity contemplating.

I have a husband who loves me, and is faithful. He's smart and determined to make his way in the world. We can rely on him to take care of us. He's also good at what he does. I'm thankful he values me for my abilities as well without much criticism. I am thankful that my hubby allows me to stay home (for the most part) and homeschool our children. It's very important to me, and I am so glad he's supportive in this matter.

I am thankful for 3 wonderful children, each very different. This gives us a lot of "spice" in our lives. I am very thankful that we have discovered some health issues where all the kids are concerned. Although we may have a long way to go in certain areas, we have come very far in the past year. Progress is so important, especially if it helps to insure against much worse conditions in the future, which would definitely have resulted if not for our (partial) understanding of what was going on.

My own health is greatly improved. This may be one of the most prominent items in my mind right now concerning my thankful issues. It is amazing to me how sick I really was 2-3 yrs. ago (gluten intolerance, undiagnosed hypothyroidism, and hormonal deficiencies/imbalance.) Now that things are much improved, I find myself enjoying life SO much more. Not a day goes by that I don't marvel about all this. So, yes, I guess in a big way, I am even thankful for my illness because now I am more thankful for health itself.

I am thankful for our country home, which we just built this past year. It is not quite finished yet, but we are living in it. And we are thankful that it is in a rural country setting. We enjoy a lot of freedom that we value greatly, in part due to the stifling conditions of the particular subdivision and area of town that we came from farther south.

I am thankful for various family members and numerous friends.

And finally, some more superficial things to be thankful for:

• The public library system, which supplies audio books on CD and mp3 format
• An mp3 player to download free mp3 audio books onto
• Air conditioning in FL
• Modern bathroom facilities
• The Internet which sports "fast-food" information retrieval
• Tried and true gluten-free recipes and the GF pioneers who created them
• Homeschooling pioneers to learn from, so I don't have to "invent the wheel"
• Stories of our past; history to learn lessons from others' mistakes
• A second family car so I can run errands and attend field trips whenever I want

Well, that's quite a list. There are lots of other things that I am thankful for, but I have to call it quits sometime. It's getting late and I am thankful for a comfortable bed that is calling out my name.