Gratitude Journal: Turning of the Year Edition

Over at Drew's blog, it's Thankful Thursday.  Every Thursday, she (and others) take a few minutes to think about and share what they're thankful for.  I am a big fan of taking time to step off the hamster wheel to focus on the small and not-so-small blessings in life.  Here's what I'm grateful for today:

~For my new mailbox, built by my dad and installed last weekend by my dad and Husband.  Our old one was leaning, leaning, leaning down into the street.  A little more lean each month.  Also, it had a bad habit of hanging around with its mouth wide open.  Couldn't seem to keep it closed.  The new mailbox is handsome and sturdy and keeps its mouth closed when it should, just like the men who built and installed it.  It makes my house feel a little more like my house.  Thanks, Pop.

~For comfortable shoes.  For shoes that are so comfortable, they all but erase my completely irrational longing for ballet flats that work for arthritic feet.

~For absentee ballots.  And actual ballots.  For secret ballots.  For the voting machine in Sidney Township where I first voted.  For the memory of pulling all those little levers down.  For the freedom to say, this one, not that one, this one, not that one.  For the (sometimes cold) comfort of freedom and the power of one vote, even when things don't turn out the way you hoped they would.

~For the silvering beauty of November.  For prairie grasses in their feathery prime.  For gunmetal grey clouds.  For the bent and wretched beauty of the bare oak tree.  For sunset at 4:52 p.m.  For a time of year that tells us to stop, look around, find beauty in sparseness and in waiting.

~For almost forgetting to put the marjoram in the split pea soup, and then NOT forgetting to put the marjoram in the split pea soup.  For split pea soup.  For the fact that everyone in my family likes split pea soup.  For an enormous honeycrisp apple from King's to serve with the split pea soup (Hello, easy side dish.  And while I'm on the topic, for all easy side dishes including: grapes, canned pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, olives, pickles, applesauce, cottage cheese, baby carrots, and sliced cucumber.  But I digress).

~For my heated mattress pad.  For central heat, warm socks, and a polarfleece bathrobe.  Yes, for warmth.

~For full moons, crescent moons, Harvest moons and Hunter's moons.  For waxing and waning moons.  For Jupiter, southwest of the moon.  Also, for Orion hanging low in the sky, bidding us goodbye for the winter.

~For every single day with my kids.  Amen, amen, amen.

I hope there are many small and not-so-small things that you are grateful for today.