30 Days of Gratefulness – An Experience From This Year

There have been a lot of things this year that I am grateful for. Belinda finally getting the POEM procedure and being able to swallow properly again. The second procedure in DC for the balloon dilation to break up the scar tissue. The people and organizations that helped us pay for all the expenses incurred with Belinda’s health, and all the people who prayed for us.

I’m thankful that Lenora and Ben R got engaged this year, and also married! I’m thankful that Bennett and Mia are engaged and plan to marry in January! I’m thankful that Ben has lost his job but it’s still working out so far. I’m thankful that I’ve been hosting church lunch at my house almost every Sunday and we’ve had a lot of wonderful guests and great meals.

I’m grateful that I have been doing this series of posts, even though I kept forgetting and then doing several in a day and backdating them.

I’m grateful for a lot of other things, but for now, I’m going to leave it at that. This year has been so very hard, but also it has been a blessing. I am grateful for all of it, whether I perceive it as good or bad. To God be the glory.

30 Days of Gratefulness – A Game

I like games. We are a game family. Not sports games, ha ha. But board game types of things. I remember playing Scrabble with my mom growing up. Playing chess with my dad. Playing Sorry and cards and Life and Hangman and Tri-onimos and Operation and Trouble with my sisters. Playing Phase 10 and Candyland and Bananagrams and Monopoly and Risk with my kids. And playing all of these and more with our extended family.

But the giant game of all games is above them all – the mighty game of Trivial Pursuit. My parents and their best friends (who were also relatives) played canasta for a time, and who knows what else, but the game I remember the most for them is Trivial Pursuit. Our parents played it, and we were allowed to be in the room…sometimes…unless we were noisy. But when we got older, we were allowed to play as well. And when I got married, I got my own Trivial Pursuit boxes. Lots of old versions, picked up a garage sales or on this new thing called eBay. A few new ones went into the collection.

As my children came along, we kept playing it with my sisters and their families. Rules were followed. Two teams only. Guys and girls. Girls always pink, boys always blue (if you tried other combinations someone would invariably forget and move the other teams token). No phones when it’s your team’s turn. No time limits but could you please hurry up???

We’ve played other games, but Trivial Pursuit is always in the mix. It’s easy to play, it’s fun enough, and if you lose you can always claim that your team got the “hard” box.

It’s given us a lot of good family times over the years, and I’m super grateful for it.

I am thankful for Trivial Pursuit.

30 days of gratefulness – A personality trait of yours

This one’s extremely hard. Like…how do you even come up with something to fill this prompt?

Matter, of fact, I don’t like this one. I don’t like it because I don’t believe that I have done anything worth being particularly braggy about. I think that everything that seems awesome about me is only here because God has put it here, and it’s the Holy Spirit working in me that allows me to produce anything of value. Most of the things I come up with myself don’t seem super great, if people knew the motivation behind things and my concern that everyone will discover the truth, that I am a fraud and not a great person, when you get right down to it. Even when I do nice stuff, I taint it by thinking that I wish other people would do more stuff for me, or that it would be cool to be noticed, or even the horrid, selfish thought that even though no one is seeing this or will do a bunch of nice things for me, God sees it and I’ll have a reward in heaven AND YOU KNOW THAT IS NOT WHY WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FOLLOWING THE GOLDEN RULE. Like…I feel like having those thoughts probably negates all the good stuff anyway. I want my brain to just quiet down and my heart to quit being selfish and just everything work together to just do good stuff, period.

I have described this feeling before as dying and going to meet Jesus and then go I go show Him all the things I did with my life, and when I open my hands, all I am holding is dirty scraps of rags, and sand that runs through my fingers until I’m holding nothing.

And you know what else? I’m not 100% sure what personality trait even means.

I am a quitter, I’m not truly nice, I’m selfish, I’m greedy, I’m pretty foul in a lot of ways. I’m also cleaned by the blood of the Lamb, but I didn’t do anything to make that happen. Not really.

I am going to choose to be thankful for the person I am, as vile as that is, and for a God who loves me anyway. That’s really all I can do with this one.

30 Days of Gratefulness – A Moment from Today

This is a funny one when you’re backdating. The 26th was a Sunday. I skipped church and hung around and felt sorry for myself. I was depressed. Sad about Jerry. Sad about money. Sad about Belinda’s illnesses. Sad because of the unmowed yard and the dirty dishes and the holes in the drywall and the broken bricks outside and a dozen other things. I felt very, very sorry for myself.

I don’t know what to be thankful for on that day.

And I’m dumb, and I just looked, and that grid makes it look like it was a Sunday, but the 26th was Tuesday, and that was Jerry’s funeral.

Obviously I am grateful for my stepdad, Jerome “Jerry” Harold Short, and the close to two decades that I was lucky enough to have him in my lift.

A link to Jerry’s obituary.

30 days of gratefulness – Something from Quarantine

I guess this is how you know the gratefulness calendar you’re using is fairly recent.

I’m grateful that our dog Lucy survived quarantine.

She was hit by a car shortly after the whole covid storyline began. It was bad, and it was going to cost thousands of dollars, and she was sort of old anyway, and we just couldn’t figure out how to do it financially. But then I talked to our hometown vet, and we figured out a plan, and we did have some debt but it wasn’t insurmountable, and Lucy lived. Our family stepped up and took care of her, helped her go potty, babied her with canned food and treats, built a non-slip carpeted ramp for the porch, and gave her physical therapy as she healed.

She passed away on October 14 of this year. We got to have her more than four more years. And we babied her more and were a better family to her after we almost lost her. We’re not big dog people, but we stepped up. She deserved it. She was such a good dog.

Thirty days of gratefulness – A future event

Wow, the last time I wrote these was 7 days ago. A lot has happened in that time. I am obviously going to continue backdating these just to make myself feel better. But now it’s the last day of November. Belinda and Bennett are still recovering from the wisdom teeth coming out. We had the viewing and funeral for Jerry. I went to the eye doctor and we had Thanksgiving. And today we watched two good friends marry.

I know it’s in the past now, but if I had wrote this then, I would have liked to have been thankful for Jerry’s viewing and funeral. It was a very sad time, and I cried a lot, but it was also so good to see all of the photos of his life, and visit with all his friends and family. People came to talk to Mom and remind her of their pasts together, and many of our friends were there to support us and say their goodbyes.

His daughter did a wonderful job with everything. I wish again that I could have done more in the last few years, but I still feel so overwhelmed and I don’t know how much I could have really done. I do want to make sure that I don’t let go of the relationships I have with Jerry’s family, even though the half of the couple that tied us together is gone. I didn’t do as good as I wanted to before, but I can surely do better now.

As for something I am grateful now that is in my future from today, I am grateful that I went to the store today and got something for my new secret sister at church. I am grateful that I have something to put at church in the morning, and that she is going to find it and feel loved! Secret sister has stressed me out in the past, and I’ve skipped it many times before, because I think I’m not a very good one. I don’t know how our new financial hardships will affect my ability to get things for her and remind her that I’m praying for her. And what if I don’t remember to pray enough? I am just trying not to have those thoughts, and do as good as I can. But it’s difficult to not be the person I am, you get me?

Anyway, this has veered off topic. I am grateful for the two events I’ve named. I am also grateful for the day when Christ returns. I am most grateful for that.

This was a weird blog entry. I feel weird so that’s not super surprising.

Wisdom teeth

Belinda got her wisdom teeth out yesterday morning. They said she did really well but she was very not happy afterwards. I have funny videos of Lenora and Bennett after their wisdom teeth came out. Belinda was either dozing or crying, so that wasn’t great. She took it easy yesterday and today she’s sore but doing better. She had me make chicken and rice soup for her today and that made her feel loved, I think.

When we were at the oral surgeon the doctor said he would call in a oral rinse prescription for Bennett, because he got canker sores after his wisdom teeth extraction, which apparently happens sometimes. They were going to call it in to CVS but it didn’t show up yesterday. The CVS people told me to wait until this morning and then check again. So it still didn’t show up and now it’s Saturday. I called the doctor’s after-hours line and waited on hold a long time, and then the person took my info and said I’d get a call back. When the call back came, they said it was because it was a prescription needing compounding and CVS doesn’t do that. If I had known it was a compound prescription I wouldn’t have asked them to send it to CVS. So I said to send it to the pharmacy in Tuttle. They said they would but the pharmacy here still didn’t have the prescription when they closed at noon. So Bennett gets to have a hurting mouth for the weekend.

I wonder if Belinda will get mouth sores as well.

Today is the kind of day that I really wish things like this were easier to navigate.

Thirty days of gratefulness – Something about where you live

I am kind of down today. I am okay, but I’m just a bit depressed. I have just been trying for so long now to be positive and thankful and joyful even when things seem difficult. And things have been difficult and appear to be not turning around anytime soon. I know there are good things in my life. I know that I have so many things to be thankful for. But it’s hard to be the one who is usually lifting up everyone else. I’m very tired and feeling really worn down today.

I am thankful for my home. I look at it today and see holes in the walls and missing mortar and loose bricks and the exposed areas on the north wall that let in so much cold last winter. I’m not feeling super positive about those things. But it’s the home I wanted and the home I got, and I do love the historical aspect of it. And the remodeled bathroom is really nice. Even though I really want to wash the shower curtain and it’s difficult for me to get down with what I call my bad arms, and I haven’t been able to get anyone to get it down for me. But maybe someone will help soon.

I am thankful for all of it. I am thankful for my yard, even though I could point out a lot of things about it that bring me down as well. I’m glad it’s somewhat rural. I’m glad that it’s back far from the road.

I’m thankful to live in Tuttle, and in Oklahoma, and in the USA. I know that I am blessed beyond belief.

I will probably feel better tomorrow.