Thankful Thursday #5: a day late, but it's here.

I've been getting home and just dropping on the couch after teaching all day while sick so no post last night.

Late start = time for a post today. 

(Hoping it will get change to no school because it's a MESS out there.)

This week I'm thankful for....

Dr. Seuss. 

We're prepping to celebrate his birthday next week and I am SO excited. What an awesome proponent of not letting critics stop you from doing what you love and to let your imagination run wild. 

Painting.

I've picked up a paintbrush a few times lately for the first time in a while and love how calming it is. More than that, it's fun to create things on paper. 

Blasts from the past.

Our school hosted my former school in basketball a few days ago, and it was fun to see some of my FIRST students out there playing. It was great to catch up with some of the families and the students, too, and have them come into my classroom to graffiti my board. :P How awesome to see where God is guiding them. 

Warmth.

Earlier this week it was over 70 degrees and broke some record highs for our city. It was glorious. We celebrated one day by taking Danny and Scout to the dog park. (Old Man Squirt stayed home because getting super-excited or over-exerted is bad for his heart.) They even got in the water - yes, even Danny, but he just wanted a drink. Scout just may be our water lovin' boy after all! I've been holding out hope that we'd have a swimmer.

Scout doing what Scouts do best.

Partners in crime.

He likes it! He really likes it!

And pup cups after the park because warm days NEED ice cream.

Random laughs. 

Like these turkeys casually strolling across the street in the middle of the city that stopped us on the way to church.

Oh, hey, turkeys.

Thankful Thursday #4: music & more

I've decided I'm going to shake up the Gratitude Challenge - sometimes I'll follow the prompts, sometimes I won't. Sometimes prompts can be so constricting.

This week I've been especially thankful for:

-a husband who is very handy and can fix things (even when I did something stupid that made them break to begin with)

-friends who can laugh off my embarrassing moments better than I can

-Spotify. Yes, I'm a little late to jump on that bandwagon since I have been a loyal Pandora listener, but I love getting to create playlists and listen to them repeatedly. Nothing says "Good morning!" like some good coffee and good tunes. This one's been on repeat most of the week.

-Sunrises. Even being able to travel in the daylight again has been delightful as we gain a few minutes of daylight back each day, but this week the colors have been stellar.

-Time to create fun things with the Cricut, like this:

Thankful Thursday #3: Today

I'm going to keep it short today - and not use a prompt. I'll throw in a bonus prompt one of these weeks to compensate.

Today I'm thankful for a great day. A long day with spending 13 hours at school, yes, but it could have felt much longer. I love my job, and I love days where we can celebrate the hard work the kids do.

Today I'm also thankful for two cups of coffee (the half-caff stuff...because it allows me to drink MORE coffee with LESS jitters!) and one cherry Pepsi. Because even though I love my job, I would not be able to do it without the caffeine that fuels me.

And a quote from Gilmore Girls will wrap this up perfectly, naturally:

source: pinterest

Thankful Thursday #2: Technology

And now for another installment of the Gratitude Challenge!

Prompt 46: Technology

Technology has been a part of my like since - well, before birth, really. And it's grown to be more of an integral part of life. Now it seems like we can hardly function without it.

One thing I truly love about technology, though, is that my phone (which is almost always with me) allows me to constantly have a camera with me. I love taking pictures, so this is a much better option than constantly carrying around an actual camera. I know this firsthand because I really used to carry a camera almost everywhere.

 It also allows me the chance to instantly photo-document things -- like the goofy way our dogs are sleeping -- and share them seconds later with my hubby on nights he's working. I know we'll also utilize this when we have children so they (and he) don't feel like he's missing out on as much with his work schedule being what it is. I also love how I've been able to incorporate this into my classroom this year to share what we're up to each day.

Another huge plus is having all this information at my fingertips. It can be something trivial like looking up who played a character in a movie, but it can also be something more useful like directions. Y'all know I am not known for having a stellar sense of direction, so using my phone as a GPS is a necessity. I also love being able to Google answers to questions whenever. We like to kill time on road trips looking up facts, history, or places to see while we're traveling because yes, we are just that cool, thankyouverymuch.

We are truly in the age where the sky isn't the limit anymore. Sure, technology can frustrate us or stress us out, but it also is a wonderful tool to have by my side each day.

source: here

Thankful Thursday #1: The Gratitude Challenge Begins

source: here

I stumbled upon the Gratitude Challenge one day while getting sucked into a black hole browsing Pinterest.  You can find it here. Feel free to join me - whether you are a blogger, a paper & pen writer, parchment & quill, whatever! Get your gratitude on!

Prompt 1: Why start the Gratitude Challenge?

Life is messy and it's not always the fun kind of messy - you know, like baking and decorating sugar cookies kind of FunMessy. Nope, sometimes it's more like the "finding the leftovers you can't even recall making and now it's growing weird colors and smells" kind of messy. That's the kind you wish you could sneak back and let someone else deal with it instead.

All of this bloodshed, destruction, distress, anger, and ugliness in the world today crosses lines we never even dreamed we'd have to worry about. It makes your heavy heart ache and tears frequent when you face the barrage of bad news.

Yet even in this mess there's a lot left unsaid about how many beautiful, good, lovely, and delightful things are still out there for us to enjoy. It's the good stuff that's more powerful than the bad.

source: here

Me? It's rather use my time and energy reminding people of the beauty rather than fueling the sadness and anger. So here I go - the Gratitude Challenge.

Here's how it's supposed to go:
52 prompts.
1 each week.
1 whole year.

EEP!

Yes, once I blogged for a 365 day challenge, but my faithful readers (hi, family!) will remember my actual total was in the two hundred range. 288 to be exact. But there's a certain pressure that comes with deadlines like this. I'll commit to once a week ish, and 52ish prompts. Quite frankly, I will consider this challenge a success if I manage to do at least 10. I do miss having motivation to blog. I miss having the luxury of more free time to blog. And I miss taking the time to truly reflect on the awesome things going on and capturing snippets of the good in my life. I miss sharing these snippets with people that don't mind reading what I write.

So here we go.

See you next Thursday as I aim to tackle another prompt!