Ten Things Of Thankful Plus A Bonus One

January is over already? Seriously? That should really count as number one on my list of Ten Things of Thankful, because it makes us that much closer to Spring, but that's too easy. Here's my real list:

1. Dry, colder than a well digger's ass weather makes it much easier to straighten my hair.

2. One of the only really troublesome side effects I have from taking Arimidex daily is bone pain. I have a lot of trouble with my hands hurting, as well as the tops of my feet and my hips. The pain in my hips often keeps me awake at night, and even Aleve doesn't give me much relief. Some time in mid-December, I realized my hips weren't hurting anymore, and my hands only minimally. The Pain Fairy came back this week, which sucks, but I'm thankful for the month and a half that it was gone!

3. I make no bones about the fact that I am not a fan of preschool parties. This week, we had two. The first party we had was less party than it was a themed day. We had a "Snow Day" (not the good kind where you get to stay home and bake bread and cookies and stuff), and it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. We had a presentation by a volunteer from the Audubon Center about animals in winter, and my kids were an excellent audience. We had a pretend snowball fight with snow forts made from cardboard boxes wrapped in white paper and soft, fabric snowballs, which was a HUGE hit with the kids, and the bonus was that they didn't get too wound up and crazy from it. 

4. The second party of the week was a 50's themed party, celebrating our 50th day of preschool. The kids are invited to wear 50's clothing, and we wear it as well. (Yes, I wore a poodle skirt, or a Scottie skirt, to be honest - I even have a crinoline petticoat that I wear underneath it, although I skipped it this year, because it scratches the backs of my legs terribly.) We play a scavenger hunt game for 50 items, we eat ice cream sundaes, we hula hoop, we dance,and we try to blow bubbles with bubblegum.  The kids and parents enjoy it, but I can truly say I am thankful it is over for another year.

5. Ruby has always had a fascination with the toilet. She particularly likes to stand on her hind feet, front paws on the seat, and watch the water go down after flushing. Today, while standing at the bathroom counter picking dead skin off my poor chapped lips packing up my makeup for our trip to a volleyball tournament, I heard Ruby jump up on the toilet, where SOMEONE (not me, for the record) had left the lid up. I turned around to see her balancing on the seat, head down, lap, lap, lapping the toilet water (note to self: in the future, be very certain Ruby hasn't had her face in your drinking glass before taking a drink). Just as I was saying, "Really, Ruby?" she lost her footing and one front leg went in the toilet bowl. As she was trying to recover from this, her hind legs went in, and, with a panic-stricken face and much splashing of toilet water, pulled herself back up onto the seat, jumped down, and scampered across the room, at which time she gave herself a thorough washing. Curiosity may not have killed the cat this time, but it sure made her pretty wet and, hopefully, scared her enough that she won't want to use it as a water bowl again. 

That USED to be my glass of Diet Coke....

6. I ate an entire bag of Cinnamon Lips that I found in the Valentine section of Hobby Lobby. Glad I got that out of my system (figuratively only, and that's all I'm going to say about THAT) and won't be tempted to buy them again. Well, this year, anyway.

7. My daughter got cast to be in the chorus of the school musical. Not a lot of freshmen in the cast, and she is very excited to be one of them. The play is "Pajama Game," and the only thing I know about it is that is where the song "Steam Heat" came from. I'm sure I will become very familiar with it in the weeks to come.

8. I am thankful for the Comment Moderation feature on Blogger that allows me to see the "English as a Second Language" comments that sometimes come with the spam hits on my blog (and which screw with my stats, but that's another story). The last time I wrote about this, the comment from my close friend Anonymous called me a whiner and an attention speaker. THIS time, dear Anonymous is dissing the eloquent comments by my lovely blog friends. ARE YOUSE PEOPLES GOING TO TAKE THIS LYING DOWN?!

9. We're expecting more winter weather next week, specifically, on Tuesday, which also happens to be my daughter's 15th birthday. She is not happy about the prospect of a snow day (the real kind, not the party kind) on her birthday, because if she's not at school, then she won't have birthday accolades tossed her way all day. But I digress. I not only took note of the upcoming weather conditions, I actually got all of my birthday shopping for her done almost a week early. FOR REAL! And I did GOOOOOOD! She's going to love her gifts!

10. Volleyball this weekend! I love volleyball tournaments (when I'm not getting whacked in the back of the head by the ball rebounding against a wall, that is). Got my chair. Got my snacks. Balls up!*

Link up your Ten Things of Thankful right here, right now.

*For those of you whose minds might be in the gutter - ahem Clark and Kristi and Beth - that phrase simply means the server has tossed the ball and it's in play.

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