A million little thank you’s

all begin with counting them one at a time.

Tonight I am thankful that this migraine headache is finally easing up, so maybe I can get some rest.

I am grateful for gift of medicine and good doctors so that I can fight this headache.  And win.

I am also thankful for:

*our Princess who kissed me gently good night and wished for me to feel better, and then got me my “Cousin Eddie” hat because I told her my head was cold from the headache.  Sweet girl.  (Y’all remember that hat?  The one with the ear flaps in “Christmas Vacation?”  Yep, I’ve got one.  And it gets the job done.

*for my little guy who has been excitedly reading more words he sees as we go places.  Tonight he read the name of the hardware store and said, “Is that what it’s called?  Remember I used to call it the hardwork store?”  Yep.  Hardwork.  Sounds about right, no?

*my oldest who had a good weekend and is heading into her busiest and best weekend ever at college.  I give thanks that she shares her joys and heartaches with me.  And that she tells me it’s okay when I might possibly maybe overstep my bounds and check in on what and how she’s doing.

*for a great church family who listen and respect and say it’s okay if we all don’t agree, and most of all we agree that we don’t know it all, and we don’t have to, thank goodness.  I appreciate how much they all love on my littles and miss my Aub when she’s not there.  The fastest way to a Mama’s heart is through her children.

*for a beautiful day that all the children and Miss Sophie could run around and stretch their legs without worry of freezing.  So much fun was had throwing the Frisbee and watching Miss Sophie and the littles and their friends race across the yard trying to catch it.

*for family that will help me look for something that I misplaced during the muddle-headedness I get with the migraines.  And look.  And look.  Especially when it was never lost to begin with.  (Sorry about that y’all.)

*for grocery stores that sell already cut up collard greens.  I know.  I know.  But I love them, and I’m the only one who eats them, so if they weren’t already prepared like that, I wouldn’t cook them at all.  Oh, and I am thrilled to know that you can cook them in the crockpot on high all afternoon and they will be just as tender as if you’d cooked them on the stovetop for most of the day.  Got the house smelling really good, y’all.

*for fireplaces and cars that run and a warm bed to sleep in tonight.  I won’t say I never take these things for granted, because I do.  But I am trying not to.  In all things, give thanks, we are told in the Good Book.  While I am not a master of that by any means, I am trying.

Truth.  And the learning to be thankful in all things begins with being thankful for one.  At a time.

And tonight, I’m especially thankful that I have a life that I can be thankful for.  That I should be thankful for.  Last night the realization that things are good hit me like a brick in the head.  Things ARE good, “contextually speaking,” as Mama and I said so many times in the fifteen months after Daddy died.  The brick hit, and it made a crack in the sadness and mourning I’ve felt for so long.  A little crack.  But still.

Tonight I’m thankful for bricks upside the head and cracks, no matter how small.

Love to all.