Let's Be Thankful for Stuff

I made it home. It's kind of a miracle because 1, I was driving on two hours of sleep, and 2, I drove through one of the busiest parts of Utah on a Friday night...on Thanksgiving weekend...with construction all around. As I was leaving Pocatello I narrowly avoided a head-on collision that had just happened in the lane next to mine. I must have been driving by seconds after it happened. There were three cars total, and one of them was in the embankment. Yikes! So thank you for all of you who prayed me home. I'm safe and sound in my own bed (hooray!).

There was an article in today's paper about how Thanksgiving gets overlooked because of greed--everyone wants Christmas to happen, and now! I know that not everyone thinks this way, but I do believe that Thanksgiving sometime does get a little bypassed as "another holiday when we eat a lot." Heheh. So, in honor of this upcoming Thursday, I'm going to make a gratitude list. Feel free to add to it!

I'm thankful for...

1. rest stops, especially for an exhausted girl who also drinks too much water
2. a working car heater, even though I had to turn it off a few times so it wouldn't lull me to sleep
3. a home-cooked meal from my mom almost as soon as I walked in the door
4. Chinese midgets
5. fast internet
6. November weather in Utah--crisp, chilly, scarf-wearing weather, minus the wind!
7. temples all along my way home (that's kinda symbolic, isn't it?)
8. Ben Harper, Joshua Radin, and Damien Rice (perfecto November music)
9. my scriptures, even though after 11 years, the cover is finally showing signs of shredding :(
10. Christmas lights!
11. realizing that next Thanksgiving, a certain 6-foot blond will be across the hall from me once again
12. free laundry...ahhh
13. professors who understand why we have a week off and don't give us any homework
14. going to bed before 6am
15. "Sample Saturday" (anyone who loves Costco knows what I'm talking about)
16. new, healthy cousins (Abby and Maggie, hooray!)
17. Food Network on Thanksgiving week--I wanna be friends with Bobby Flay so he can make me sage and apple-glazed turkey and mulled cider (yes, he did)
18. socks straight from the dryer
19. clean sheets
20. temple clothes
21. driving past my high school...I don't know why it just makes me happy
22. giving people my parking space
23. knowing that when I go back to Rexburg there will only be 2 weeks of school left
24. my parents. they're pretty cool, huh?
25. not using capitalization at the beginning of my sentences. I feel like a rebel (but I can't bring myself to de-capitalize the "I." See? I just tried it and I had to change it.)
26. dogs. they're smelly but I still love 'em.
27. best friends
28. newspapers (yes, I still read the paper!)
29. planning Christmas presents for family members...I feel sneaky. It feels good.
30. reading books that I've been reading since I was a kid to the other chilluns
31. shampoo+water that isn't so hard it makes me look like I have dandruff
32. Christmas cards
33. the beloved instrument in our front room
34. broken headphones (I was forced to clean the fieldhouse and the raquetball courts all by myself on Friday morning for 6 hours....without any music. It was quiet but still. You know?)
35. parks and recreation/the office/30 rock/community (NBC is taking over the comedic world....uh-oh)
36. parades
37. holiday movies
38. lists in general
39. old journals
40. Asics
    
41. poetry contests, especially poetry contests that other people win ;)
42. BYU football
43. snow on the tops of the mountains
44. driving past the "Welcome to Utah" sign
45. good hygiene
46. hand turkeys
47. William Bradford and Squanto, for welcoming us in English!
    
48. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
49. songs sung in Chinese by a Chinesean (yep, Caleb thinks he's Chinesean, which is a species)
    
50. all of you who have bothered to read through this list....you sure are curious! LOVE YOU ALL! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I tag...everyone who reads this. Make your own gratitude list!