~thankful thursday~ peanut butter

~30 days of gratitude~ day 25

11/25/22

Grateful. It’s been too many pandemic holidays without him. So grateful to fill him up with food and love.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 26

11/26/22

Today I am grateful for my brothers, one of whom has a birthday today. I have said this before, because it’s year six of this gratitude project and every November 26^th I’m going to think about them. And always I’ll feel grateful for the humans they are, their presence in this world, the slices of bread to sandwich me, which I guess makes me the peanut butter. I am grateful to have unearthed this photo of them, uninhibited, nontoxic to the core.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 27

11/27/22

I’m grateful for: listening to Rich offer to teach Quinn to drive; and an all-day game of Cat-opoly with the two of them.

 

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 28

11/28/22

I am almost out of days of gratitude and books have not yet had their day. Tonight, while Rich took in a Steelers game and popped us some popcorn in Bob’s honor, I listened to the exquisite audio of this book that I have on my library app even though I bought the actual book and have it in my lap. And as soon as I get done listening and my library hold ends I will open this up and start again at the beginning and underline all the things that made me speak aloud while I listened. There are some books that dunk you right away and sweep you along in a current and you just hold on for the ride. Lidia Yuknavitch is one of those authors. I’m such a fan, and also, I get to sell heirloom tomatoes to her family at the farmer’s market once in a while, so that’s also fun.

And while I’m feeling thankful for books, my gratitude for librarians continues to be ardent, as I’ve leaned heavily on the interlibrary loan privileges that come with my student status at SNHU. The benevolent book fairies have been busy whizzing articles at me across cyberspace whenever I hop down another research rabbit hole.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 29

11/29/22

Holy cow, it’s penultimate gratitude day. I scanned back through the month to review:

We made it through another winter, we will make it through this one. Get us some therapy if we need to.

Sunshine, nachos, a pallet pirate ship full of feral kittens.

Job, house, MFA.

Cows who have names, four gallons of honey.

Cloud whales, crock pot.

Husband hugs.

Sunrise, sunset.

Men’s gummi vitamins.

Ma and Pa.

Soft walls, warm fires.

Peanut butter.

I am grateful for the way these gratitudes, post-it-note and placard-sized, and every size in between, collect into a quirky little bundle each year and make a kind of sense together, put off a sort of warmth, a little light, they almost hum. It’s a nice way to stand on the threshold of December, with this little bundle in my pocket.

 

~30 days of gratitude~ day 30

11/30/22

For the first twenty-nine gratitudes this year, I was thinking this was year six. Then I looked back at the previous years to remind myself what they were all about, and it turns out, this year of gratitude posts is year seven. How powerfully magical.

I think you know what we ate for dinner tonight, official meal of the gratitude challenge. And to kick off December, we decided to put up our tree, and I am excited for morning writing time with not only my sun lamp but also twinkle rainbow lights. I am grateful for each and every small light this time of year. The sunset that sometimes coincides with the end of my work day, the weekend sun glancing off kitten fur. And the metaphorical kind, blinking like fireflies from all you lovely light bringing friends. Two hundred and ten gratitude posts later, I remain ever grateful for you all coming along for the ride.