Grateful Friday

Today I give thanks for...

A warm house, wool sweaters and socks, a stash of tea bags. It's been so cold here the exact temperature doesn't matter. Pretty much everything was closed here all week. We didn't have mail for two days. Monday because of a picturesque snow storm and then the dangerous cold set in immobilizing our city.  Today it's still single digits, but we are used to that so regular life resumes.

Peanut is feeling better. He was very sick for 24 hours this week. He ate something that didn't agree with his sensitive stomach. He would eat and throw up and then go right back to eat again still hungry. Eventually, we had to take his food away which meant we also had to take Tigger's food away. Food is pretty much all Peanut thinks about too even when he can graze at leisure. They both sat sentinel beside their empty bowls and it broke my heart.

Teddy asking me to edit one of the essays he wrote for a scholarship he's applying for. It was about integrity and in it he espouses upon his recent car accident...accepting fault and taking responsibility. He was impacted by this experience far more than I realized and it was good to know that our reaction to the incident was something that meant a great deal to him.

Getting up early to bake a loaf of bread to take into the office on a polar vortex morning. I learned that my go to recipe can sit on the counter all night rising and then it's ready to bake first thing. It's best hot out of the oven slathered with Irish butter. My associates were very happy and that made me happy.

The little things. Random acts. Kindness. These things matter big.

My new tablecloth. I hemmed and hawed over the patterns. I was in the market for a Le Jaqaurd Francais and so it was an investment. I had to get it right. I picked it up this afternoon and I think I got it right. I've spent lots of money on mediocre table cloths that shrink and are impossible to keep stain-free. My mom's tablecloth, which was always my favorite, is full of holes. It's been well used and hundreds of times laundered. At my last dinner party, I had to position place mats so as to hide them. It was time. I don't know that I'll throw it away though.

Trips down memory lane. I needed to send pictures of baby Teddy for the yearbook. It was something to go back through the years. It seems like only minutes ago that he was so little. 

Another quiet weekend for resting, reading and reflection.