Overly Long But Overly Thankful

I was a liiiiiitle worried the Ten Things of Thankful wasn't going to come off this weekend. I had a dreadful time getting the whole linky thing to work out, but thanks to Kristi coming to my rescue (repeatedly), I did it! Now on with the show!

I thought it was going to be hard to go back to work after Thanksgiving break, but it was good to get back. Don't get me wrong; I believe I was born to be a woman of leisure and unlimited means, but as rest of the world is not in agreement with this, work it is!

My classroom is decorated for Christmas. There is no picture to show you how cute it looks. Why didn't I think to take a picture? My little humans were so excited! Candy canes and gingerbread boys and girls on the walls and windows. Christmas lights. It's festive without going overboard.

I bought a small Christmas tree at the Salvation Army thrift store that is preschool-height. It was supposed to be $8, but the lights didn't work, so they let me have it for $4. Grab bags of ornaments (hopefully, non-breakable ones, but time will tell), garland, and a new string of lights, and we are in business! The kids just love it! They get to decorate it and un-decorate it to their hearts' desires, unlike at home, where they are most likely not allowed to touch the tree.

I'm really thankful that my assistant teacher painstakingly cut all the old Christmas lights off the new tree. It was not a fun job, but she never complained once. To me, anyway.

Another thrift store score, only this time at Red Racks: I found a cute lamp to use as a nightlight in my classroom during nap time that was marked $5.99, which is a terrific price, considering it also included a decent lamp shade AND a light bulb. I also picked up three Santa hats for the dress up center; one was 97 cents and the other two were $1.99. In the checkout line, a rude man pushed his way in front of me when a second register was opened, so when it was finally my turn, the checker apologized to me. I said it was fine, but as she rang up my stuff, she said she was going to charge me 97 cents for all three Santa hats, plus give me 50% off. Then she asked me if I qualified for the senior discount, to which I answered WHY YES, I DO! 25% off the total. I'm not sure what she charged me for the lamp, but my whole bill was just over $5.00 and it would have been $11.00 without all the discounts. Happy dance!

It was cold this week, with threats of snow flurries one morning that didn't actually materialize, but there was some rain and cold wind. And then, by some miracle, this weekend has been warm and sunshiny and gorgeous. Welcome to Missouri weather!

When I saw the forecast for the weekend, I told my husband that we were going to take a little trip to Roaring River State Park and hike on the trails and hopefully see some eagles (we did not). He tried to talk me out of hiking, because he had been on those trails before when camping with our son many years ago and said they were pretty rugged trails, plus he was having flashbacks of the last time I insisted we go hiking, which was on his birthday, immediately pre-Covid shutdown, when, among other fiascos, he had a serious chafing issue which caused him to complain that his balls were on fire for half the hike (read about it here). Guess who won THIS showdown? MEEEEE!!!

We only hiked on one trail today, and neither of us fell off the bluff that we were following and rolled down the hills into the river, so I'm calling it a win.

The trail was not a loop, but THIS time, we both knew it. It was an up and back 

I didn't hit my head on a tree that leaned dangerously across the trail and that I didn't see because I was watching my feet instead of looking ahead.

I didn't hit my head on the same tree when we came back through. Can you tell it was a narrow miss?

I think that's more than ten. Isn't it terrific to be overly thankful?!

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