Glorious Fall Days Full Of Thankfuls

October really is a lovely month. There are warm days, sometimes even hot ones, where you can cling onto your summer clothes and flip flops for just a little longer, and there are snappy days with a little bite in the breeze that make you remember how much you love wearing boots and sweaters, and there are glorious days in between, with bright, blue skies and just a pinch of briskness in the air, and we've had them all this week. If that's not a thankful right there, then here are Ten Things of Thankful for the rest of the week:

1. I ran into Sam's Club (like Costco, for those of you who don't live in Walmart Country) the other day to pick up a few things, put my grocery cart away (where it was the only one in the little cart corral), went back to my car, pulled out of my parking space, and just as I put the car into drive, I spied with my little eye A GROCERY CART ROLLING RIGHT AT ME. I can't imagine where it came from, because I was the only one in the immediate area when I put my cart away, and I was preparing for the impact when it veered to my right. This was a thankful for me, but the cart's next intended target was the bottom end of a woman loading groceries into her trunk. I started honking my horn like a maniac to get her attention. She looked up at me and gave me a half smile, then noticed I was frantically pointing behind her. She turned around in time to catch the cart before it boffed her in the butt.  

2. As I drove past the cart corral, I was happy to note that my cart was still firmly parked where I left it and was NOT the runaway cart, because that would have really sucked. 

3. It's been a long, dry spell since I indulged in my little hobby of taking pictures of exposed butt cracks, but I was rewarded with a pretty decent shot in the checkout line at Walmart:

As if the butt crack weren't bad enough, we now know
he buys his underpants at American Eagle.

4. I really, really hate spiders, but in the fall, we always have a big 'un spin a web in our carport, between the posts along the driver's side. This year, there is a GINORMOUS spider setting up camp there. I keep forgetting it's there when I go to my car and when I pull in the carport and get out of the car, and he scares the bejeebers out of me every time, but as long as he stays in his web and doesn't try to attach himself to me in any way, then we can coexist. So far, so good.

Gargantuan spider. I couldn't hold anything up there for
reference, because I was too scared, but suffice it to say
that his body alone is bigger than a quarter.

5. Volleyball is over, over, OVER for the season! The girls lost in their first game of District play, and this hellish season is DONE.

Isn't this awesome? One of Emma's friends found it in the
archives of the paper for fall sports. It didn't make the paper,
but it should have.

6. But the Kansas City Royals? Yeah, they made it to the World Series. 

7. When we bought our house 18 years ago, the refrigerator came with the house. We had a practically new side-by-side that we brought with us from California and were going to put in the kitchen instead, until we found out it didn't fit in the refrigerator hole. It went down to our basement to live instead and has been useful to store extra flour and baking mixes and rice and other foods that can get bugs in them. The freezer side has always had some overflow stuff and odds and ends, but we also have a chest deep freeze big enough to hold at least one body (not that we've tried, but still). Wednesday, I went down to look in the freezer of the side-by-side to see if there were any frozen vegetables stashed in there and found there were only thawed ones. Let that wash over you a minute. The motor was still humming away, but the inside of the freezer was barely cool. I threw away half a trash bag full of food that had thawed (including some salmon fillets that should have been in the deep freeze in the first place), leaving only some gel ice packs on the shelves.  Then I opened the refrigerator side (it didn't have anything perishable in it), and, not having any clue what to do about the whole situation, turned off the switch, then turned it back on and sadly hauled the trash bag outside. Fast forward four days. I went into the basement for something and decided to go see if the side-by-side had fixed itself (ha ha ha). I opened the freezer door, and was met with a puff of cool air and gel ice packs that were almost frozen. WHAT. THE. HELL? I list this tentatively as a thankful, for obvious reasons.

8. I bought a new pair of jeans. I hate to shop for jeans, but finding a pair I not only liked but that were also on sale was a pleasant surprise.

9. We went to the lake house this weekend with the primary purpose of visiting nearby Silver Dollar City, an 1880s theme park. It's always seasonally decorated, but the fall decorations are my favorite. It was a gorgeous day, I got to sit and listen TWICE to a little bluegrass band that has been playing there for many years and that I adore, and THERE WAS NO FIGHTING, BITING OR OTHERWISE HATEFUL BEHAVIOR from any of my family.

10. Ruby made the journey with us to the lake house, but I guess when we left this morning to go to Silver Dollar City, she was not happy. My parents had gone out to get Sunday papers when we returned in the early afternoon, and we found this note from my mom on the refrigerator door:

My mom cracks me up!

Be thankful, be thankful, be thankful!

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