Sunday Gratitude – 13.IV.2025

The last few days have been tough; I’m the type of person who wants to have a plan for every eventuality (even if I don’t stick to the plan) and… that’s just not possible. I can live wisely, and I can be prepared for a certain number of things, but I can’t possibly know what exactly will be happening next week, much less six months from now or five years from now.

I’m very frustrated that the house always seems to look like a tornado went through it, and I get frustrated with myself for not doing more, and not pushing myself through feeling awful to just get stuff done. There are three things that really trip me up – one, I’m absolutely tired of everything house-related; two, I get very frustrated with the kids finding socks stuffed in the furniture and plates on the floor in the basement or what-have you; and three, there’s a ton of dust that gets disturbed, and even a few years ago it didn’t seem to bother me, but now, it just makes me feel awful. However, it may sound like a silly thing, but I know I’ve had two bedrooms completely clean this year, and I got a good part of the family room done, and slowly getting through the cycle takes a little bit less each time. It’s still painfully slow, but it’s progress. Besides that, though, I’ve found a good number of things – including gift cards and money – that have been lost for varying amounts of time, and I have found things for the kids as well, and I’m grateful for that.

I’m thankful for the extra church services attached to Lent, and being able to go to some and getting to sing. I don’t go just to sing, but I hardly know what I would do with myself if I weren’t singing. There have been sometimes recently where it seems like even though our numbers are small (often only two or three), we’re kind of hitting a stride with the music, and it sounds so lovely. I’m grateful for the opportunity, and thankful for being part of something like that.

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been a couple of opportunities to talk to people in person in a more one-on-one setting than normal, and that has been really nice. One of these things involved a quick trip south of the border (to Illinois, that is!) and the other was at someone’s house.

Friday was sunny and about 50F, and my youngest begged me to go play outside. I didn’t want her out by herself, so I decided to go out and work on getting bikes in working order, knowing that the one had a very flat tire, and Amazon delivered to me the replacement innertube. In any case, I remembered the “Trail-a-Bike” that has been hanging in our garage for the better part of a decade, and I got it down to see if it’s still usable. (It was a hand-me-down from older relatives.) It never made sense to use it before because even with kids in the age range for it (4-6), there was usually always a younger kid, and so, if anything, we were using the bike trailer. However, I got this thing down, figured out how it can fit on my bike, and we went on an impromptu bike ride of nearly 2.5 miles to test it out. She was in heaven! She thought it was the greatest thing! She must have been waving to other bikers, because basically everyone we saw biking said hello, and there was even one lady who was teasing her a little with, “I’m going to catch up to you!” or something silly like that, and even though I couldn’t see her, I could hear her giggling. It was a lot of fun, and totally unexpected. Her brother was with us, and he had a blast too. 🙂

I am also thankful for very practical things, such as the friends who made purchases through my links at Amazon to help get my new Associates account fully established. You rock!

In any case, thank you again for reading, for praying, and for coming along on this adventure. 🙂

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