Backdated, ha ha.

My favorite food. This is weird because I’m not really sure what my favorite is. And since I lost most of my tasting ability to long covid, I’m extra not sure.

But..I know my favorite food is food I don’t have to cook myself! I don’t like cleaning up and am indifferent to cooking, but I don’t like having to plan meals anymore. My brain is tired and likes then other people plan the meals. Unfortunatley, I am the one who has to plan and execute most of the meals around here.

But this is about gratefulness, and I am so very grateful when I don’t have to do anything with the meal except eat it! I am very thankful for the times Ben or the kids have made meals for me. And I am thankful for the fact that we have been able to eat out many times in the past. Being able to relax with friends and family and enjoy a meal without any work is like heaven to me!

Today I forgot that I was going to do this. Then I happened to look at my fb memories and saw the post I made on being thankful in 2017. So that’s very good!

I’m thankful for a lot of songs! But I’m going to write about a very good one. The Fox. It’s hard to believe I have enjoyed that song for 11 years now. I remember the first time I saw it. I thought the guy in it was pretty funny. Another song by him popped up on my youtube page and I clicked that too. Stonehenge. I thought that was very funny. And I noticed that the guy in The Fox was actually two guys, since I’d only focused on Bård the first time I saw it, and Vegard was obviously a different guy in Stonehenge. That’s what really sent me on the deep dive.

I watched their music videos, then some of their live shows, then all the transcribed episodes I could find of I Kveld Med Ylvis, their late night talk show. Since then, I’ve stayed a fan, watching them in everything I could find. I’ve even spent a long time slowly learning Norwegian, so I can hopefully understand the stuff that’s only in Norsk…eventually.

My interest has also led me to other Norwegian artists, and a fascination with their culture. I’m hoping that one day I will get to visit Norway and see Ylvis in concert myself!

Enjoying Ylvis has really been fun for me. Their sense of humor strikes my funny bone and consists of some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s gotten me through some hard times. And I also love sharing it with others, even though no one else seems quite as passionate about them. My family does enjoy watching Ylvis with me, though.

Hooray for The Fox!

Day 2 – A Person

I thought on this one a lot. I’m thankful for a lot of people. Ben. My children. My mom. My sister. Her children. My late sister’s daughter. My son-in-law and future daughter-in-law. Ben’s parents’ Ben’s brother and sister, and his brother-in-law. And then there’s aunts and uncles and cousins and friends…

I thought I’d just pick Ben, and I am incredibly grateful for him. I’m not sure that’s the one I want to write about today though.

I then thought about Jesus, who is a person as well, but although I am also so very grateful for Him, that’s not quite what I wanted to write either. I mean…obviously I am grateful to Jesus. And also to Ben. But who to pick then? If I go with a close friend or relative, then I would feel like I was dissing the others.

And then I decided that I wanted to express my gratefulness to Michelle. I’m not going to put her last name because I haven’t asked her permission, but Michelle is in charge of our homeschool group. Michelle was running things when we first started homeschooling. We went as a group and found fossils in southern Oklahoma. Her daughter was much older than little Lenora, but she took her under her wing that day and was so sweet to her. I’ll never forget that. Lenora was so, so impressed with her daughter and instead of acting like the little person was an annoyance, she acted like she enjoyed every minute.

Michelle has been the glue that has held our group together. I wondered what would happen as her children all graduated from school – who could take her place? But then, she just continued. Through illness and other difficulties, she came back and ran our co-op once again after her youngest was finished. And now, her oldest grandchild is homeschooling, and is there at the co-op on Tuesdays. I don’t know if Michelle will ever stop. She is such a gift to our local homeschool community.

Michelle is smart, she’s sarcastic, she’s efficient, she’s organized. She’s great at leading others. She sees your skills and gets you plugged in where you can help and feel like you’re contributing. She somehow remembers everyone’s name. I can’t remember the names of people I’ve homeschooled with for years. I don’t know which kid goes with which parent, and I never remember anyone’s difficulties, trials, or victories. Michelle does. She is the very best kind of leader.

Without Michelle, I do not believe our organization would have even survived, much less thrived. I owe my children’s homeschooling journey in part to her. I honestly do not know if we would have made it without her. I’m not good at explaining it, I guess, but she’s so important, you guys. I don’t even know if she knows it. But she is.

When Marissa died, Michelle gave me a wall hanging that says “We do not remember days, we remember moments.” I still have it on my bedroom wall, above my mirror. It’s so true. I don’t remember every day, but I do remember special moments through our homeschooling years, and there are a lot of memories with Michelle. She has made such a difference in my life and in my children’s lives. She is truly a blessing for God in our lives.

I cannot ever thank her enough. But I am grateful. So very grateful.

Thank you, Michelle.

Today on my facebook memories I saw that I did Thirty Days of Gratefulness posts in November 2017. I think that is a fantastic idea and I’m going to attempt it again. Here’s the image I am using this year, from Hella Mama Things:

Today is Something in the Room.

I am thankful for our TV. I know that sounds a little odd and materialistic, but hear me out. When Ben and I graduated college and got real jobs, we bought a brand new giant TV. It was a big box TV, 36 glorious inches, and it weighed a TON. We bought a big fancy wooden cabinet for it, with plenty of room to hold our VCR and all our VHS cassettes, plus room for a equalizer, our CD player, and cassette player. We had a few more spaces for electronics, so we picked up a record player and a super cool laserdisc player and added those to the cabinet. Oh, and we got the TV at Best Buy or something like that and made payments on it. This was an extremely expensive TV. Probably the most expensive one they had. I know it was the biggest. I remember that they also had 35 inch TVs, but we went for the 36. Just cause.

So, after a few years, plasma TVs became a thing. We did not buy one. Ben said as the technology improved, they would get much cheaper. Then the other TVs came out…was it LED? We didn’t get that either. We didn’t get a smart TV. We just kept waiting. Lenora, Bennett, and Belinda came along and we didn’t get a new TV. We just kept using the big old TV. When over-the-air TV went digital, we had to get converter boxes for the big TV, and also for the one in our bedroom, which I had bought at a garage sale when I was in high school.

The massive TV wasn’t always convenient, and it was also scary when I would catch a child climbing on the cabinet to get something off the top. They would be severely reprimanded and informed that they could DIE if that TV fell on something. I couldn’t even lift it. The sucker was that big.

But flat screens TVs seemed too expensive and too extravagant.

But then the old TV died.

So we bought the flat screen TV that Krislyn had, and didn’t want. And then a remote got thrown and then that TV broke. Like after a week. The flat screen turned out to be not as hardy as the big box tv, which could take flying remotes and also crayon drawings on the screen. So when I saw a listing on craigslist for another massive box TV, for basically nothing, we got that.

I don’t remember the year we finally upgraded, but I do know that we had a box tv for a very long time. A very, very long time. So long that when people would come to our house for the first time, they would comment on it. Like…wow, you still have a box tv? And…I haven’t seen one of those in a while. Stuff like that. But one Christmas we all received Visa gift cards. And we were thinking about what to buy and the suggestion came up to pool all the money and get a flat screen tv. I thought I suggested it but Bennett said recently that it was him, and I’m sure that he’s right. Anyway, we went to Walmart with all our shiny gift cards and had enough to get a fancy smart TV and an adjustable bracket to put it on the wall. And what a TV it was! Biggest screen we’d had yet, and so clear and easy to use. Quick access to Netflix and whatever other apps we had at that time. The kids could finally play their video games for four people instead of trying and failing to play together on a square screen. And no more letterboxed screens. Everything we watched was either letterboxed or cut off on the sides until the new TV. Not a huge deal, but pretty nice to have them gone. We all enjoyed the new TV, and we did that together.

That’s why I’m thankful for it. It has allowed my family to gather together and laugh together, and to cry together. We’ve watched old home movies, old cartoons, and crazy animes. While we watch, we laugh, and talk, and pause the show to look something up, and enjoy each other’s comapny. We don’t always spend a lot of time together, but the TV has been a way that we can connect as a family. I suppose that’s not something to be proud of, is it? Time spent in front of a screen? But we’re not sitting like zombies staring at it. We’re connecting, and sharing snacks and laughter, and just filling the same space…for a little while. With children already grown or almost there, I am thankful for any time we spend together as a family. This TV gives me more of those times. And I am thankful for it.