Ten Plus A Bonus

I missed the party last week, but the reason is what gives me the start of my Ten Things of Thankful list for THIS week:

1. My dad had a health scare last Sunday that turned out not scary after all. I could call that worth ten, but I won't.

2. Candy pumpkins are only available this time of year. If I could get them ANY time, (a) I would get tired of them and (b) my teeth would rot and fall out. One month is just long enough!

3. Certainly not cool, crisp fall weather around here, but it's not blistering hot, either.

4. My family members and friends who live in Florida were not devastated by Hurrican Ian. If you would like to donate to help those who were, I suggest making it to the American Red Cross. 

5. My friend Nikki and I went to a warehouse sale at Erimish, my favoritist bracelet maker, and got many bracelets. I spent wayyyyy less than Nikki, and I am thankful for that, too!

6. Speaking of Nikki, she surprised me with a SUPER COOL GIFT:

Fisher Price took Little People to a whole new level

7. I thought a clock in the family room was broken. Turns out it just needed the corroded battery replaced. Whoops! Thankful to my husband for discovering this and cleaning off the corroded crud.

8. While my daughter didn't exactly come HOME for the weekend, she came THROUGH, dropped off the grandcat Calvin, and continued on to Fayetteville to visit friends. We did get to spend a little time together on Sunday on her way back through, and I am grateful that she was willing to help me hose down the patio area on the playground at school (need a clean slate for all the chalk art the kids are currently obsessed with). 

9. We went to Target and poked around and bought a Halloween costume for Calvin. Of course, we tried it on all the cats (except the Upstairs Cat, who wisely stayed, well, upstairs).

Lewis was the first victim

Nora had no doubt she was still beautiful

Calvin can't hide his death wish

10. I'm looking forward to the upcoming week and several fun activities I have planned. Tune in next week to see if they make the thankful cut!

And bonus thankful: the Chiefs beat the Buccaneers!

I hope YOU are looking forward to a thankful week!

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I Finds Them Where I Sees Them

Week went fast. Weekend went faster. Here are my Ten Things of Thankful:

1. We celebrated Grandparents Day at school this week. I don't like events. I feel awkward and everyone is looking at me and I want to go home, so my thankful is that it is over for another year! 

2. As if Grandparents Day wasn't enough, we also had to have a booth at a local event called Third Thursday, which is a little street fair held downtown monthly from April through October. That's over now, too, until we are forced to do it again next September.

3. We learned about apples this week at school. I just got a text from a mom who said her son had an apple this weekend and wanted to plant the seeds to grow his own apple tree. It's delightful to see students carry what we talk about at school to home!

4. To add to that, I am thankful when parents text me stories and updates on my students (and former students). I love seeing little snapshots of their lives outside of school!

5. My husband and I picked out our own Christmas gifts this weekend:

6. I'm finding myself thankful for Instagram reels, which I never thought I'd say, since I thought them annoying, but when I can't sleep at night, they sure do help pass the time.

7. Update on the Upstairs Cat: he went downstairs on his own volition today, ate a little kibble, then sauntered back upstairs. He was jumpy while he was down there, and he jumped up like an armadillo no less than five times, but it's still progress.

8. Temps are back in the upper 90s here, but by mid-week, it's going to cool off. Not sweater weather, but not sweating weather, either!

9. I had a migraine yesterday, and I'm not thankful for that, because it was a doozy and my head still hurts this evening, but the thankful is the aura I get as the first sign I have a migraine has changed. I still HAVE one, but instead of a big blind spot (think the dark spot you see when the flash on a camera goes off in your face), I now have a large ring that moves across my field of vision. It's made of cut glass and has prisms with bright colors flashing in it, but at least I still have some vision until it passes (always from left to right, which is interesting). 

10. I'm thankful my son and daughter in law made it safely to and back home from vacation in Bali. Holy smokes, I didn't have a clue how far away that place is! Looks like I need to brush up on my geography!

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Thankfuls With A Bonus Centerfold Photo

Whoa, the weekend almost got away from me! By the way, September is halfway over this week. Let that wash over you a minute. 

Here are my Ten Things of Thankful for this week:

1. Popcorn that has been popped on the stove. With butter. Note to self: buy more popcorn.

2. Slightly cooler weather. According to the forecast, it's fleeting, but at least for one night, we can sleep with our windows open for the first time since, oh, April.

3. The Upstairs Kitty has been brave enough to go downstairs a couple of times this week. He had to be carried down the stairs and gently deposited in the kitchen, but he didn't freak out, so maybe there's hope he will return to being a full-house kitty.

4. Propel Black Cherry water. Tastes so much like a bing cherry that I want to chew it every time I take a drink.

5. Clean sheets on the bed.

6. I had a lovely visit with my friend and former co-worker Janet.

7. A craving for Mexican food that was satisfied by going out with my husband. I texted him on my way home from work and said I NEEDED it and he didn't question it at all.

8. The many birthday greetings I received last weekend. Social media isn't all bad!

9. The amazing cinnamon rolls I made this morning. Totally worth the 3+ hours it took to make them.

10. Chiefs win their first game of the season! 

Gratuitous photo of Lewis (he is NOT the
upstairs cat) just so you can admire his
mustache, toe fluff and pink toe bean.

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Welcome To 62!

The post I was writing in my head last night when I couldn't sleep was much different than the version that I'm writing now. The other was dour and sad. What is it about the darkness of night that makes our thoughts go to what isn't rather than what is?

Today is my birthday. I've been feeling a little blue about it, not because I'm getting older (okay, a LITTLE bit because I'm getting older), but because I miss my mom the most on my birthday. It's been 6 birthdays since I've gotten a call from her with the running joke about how MISERABLE she was X number of years ago while birthing 10 lb.,1 oz. me. And in my sleeplessness last night, this was playing on a loop in my mind. 

It's daylight now, and the sad has slipped back into the shadows. There is birthday cake and ice cream to eat and calls and birthday wishes on social media and a family Zoom call to come. Pollyanna is back, and here are my Ten Things of Thankful, subtitled On Being 62:

Since my goal is to live to at least 104, I am just now middle aged.

I don't care a whole lot what other people think about me anymore. I'm finally taking the advice I've always given my kids that people really don't give much thought to anyone else but themselves, anyway, so quit worrying about it.

I have learned to avoid arguments by saying "whatever" and walking away.

I have embraced my silver hair for three years now. Does it surprise me sometimes when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror? Yes, yes, it does, but I wouldn't go back to coloring it for anything.

Comfortable shoes are my jam. I am in love with Allbirds sneakers, have probably a dozen pairs in all different colors, and wear them pretty much every day.

I can jump around with my preschoolers at movement time, and I can out-dance them when we have Fun Day Friday dance parties. This week, we danced to "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers, and they were dropping like flies while I kept going, so take that!

I have grown more passionate about causes that I find important and work in whatever way I can, big or small, to promote them.

I'm very into self preservation, as in not hurting myself via falling or lifting. Gets me out of things I don't want to do.

I am not afraid to ask for a senior discount. 

I will never wish my life away, but I do look forward to the future. In spite of those thoughts and worries that creep in on sleepless nights, I have a terrific life that includes my wonderful family and friends and so many things to experience and accomplish in the next 40+ years.

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Clicking Away At My Thankfuls!

My new leaf flipped over already, but it's early on Sunday, not minutes before midnight, so I guess you could say I'm early-ish for the Ten Things of Thankful!

First and foremost, I am writing this with much more ease than I have in the past, um, two and a half years. My husband got me a new laptop for Christmas 2019, and a couple of months after I got it, the left clicky thing on the mouse pad broke. It still WORKED, but it was loose, and sometimes it slid under the edge of the computer or under the right clicky thing, and I had to scoot it out. I finally told him the other day that it was broken, and he Googled a way to fix it (involving some foam he harvested from the inside of a laptop bag and has been using for fishing hook storage, so if my computer smells like trout, I'll know why). So far, so good!

I got to spend the last two Sundays at in-person church! It always makes my heart happy to be there.

I wore a blue knit dress one of the Sundays, and when I got back to my daughter's apartment, my husband immediately pointed to a place near the neckline and said, "What did you spill on your dress?" Obviously, I didn't know I had spilled ANYTHING on the dress, or I wouldn't have worn it. After closer observation (and I couldn't see it until I took the dress off), it appeared to be where a bit of chocolate ice cream dripped onto it one day after school when I was self-medicating. I know Rev. Shanna noticed it when we were talking before church, but she was kind enough not to stare at it while we spoke (I would have noticed THAT, or at least, I THINK I would have).

A few weeks ago, I woke up to what sounded like a critter running back and forth across our attic floor. A thunderstorm had just passed through, and at first, I thought it was tree limbs scraping the roof, but the more I listened, the more I heard scampering, and I woke my husband up by saying, "There's something alive in our attic." We have not heard it since, and I am hoping this means (a) the critter didn't like our attic or (b) it never was a critter in the first place.

We're a little jumpy, including the cats, but nothing will make you jump more than to get up in the night and see what looks like a skunk in your bedroom, only to have it turn out to be Finn.

All three cats trying to lie where they
can touch me. Finn was the lucky
winner of the lap. 

My husband just brought me my glass of ice tea that I left in the kitchen and as he handed it to me, he said, "Add this toy our list of thankfuls." Here it is.

Oreos. Specifically, double-stuffed Oreos.

Really good hamburgers.

Fun co-workers.

My little nugs at preschool. Sometimes, they are pickles, but most of the time, they are my sweet babies, and regardless, I love them to pieces.

Looking at a caterpillar

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Birthday Parties Are More Fun Than Moving Parties

I totally missed the Ten Things of Thankful hop last weekend, but the reason why will just lead me right into THIS week's post!

1. My daughter moved from her sketchy apartment building located smack across the street from the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City to an apartment in a house in a quiet, residential area on the west side of the Plaza (aptly known as the West Plaza area). Whew! The OG apartment didn't seem that bad when we moved her in, but it degenerated rapidly, and I'm relieved that she is outta there.

2. After last year's move in, which nearly killed her father and me, we vowed we had retired from being her moving company and she would need to find friends or hire movers next time (you know where this is going, right?). She did hire movers for the large pieces of furniture, but she and I did the rest (my husband managed to skip out on helping by COINCIDENTALLY scheduling a business trip for moving day).  The OG apartment had a flight of (uneven) concrete stairs from the street level just to the front door, then another flight to the second floor, and a hallway that was LITERALLY half a block long before reaching her apartment at the back of the building. 

Turns out THAT was nothing.

The new apartment has 35 steps from the outside door to her third floor, attic apartment door, and they spiral. We huffed and chuffed (okay, I huffed and chuffed) our way up and down them dozens of times over the course of several days, but we got most of her stuff moved. 

I wasn't kidding

If this is your best choice for a
moving crew, you probably 
shouldn't be moving....

3. The movers she hired were amazing. They worked quickly, were friendly and professional, and liked us right up until they arrived at the new apartment with her furniture. . . .

Following the moving truck

4. After having to call in two more guys to help them take apart the futon (one of the movers said he could take it apart but wasn't sure he could get it back together again; hence, the call for assistance that we appreciated), they got the furniture up the stairs and set up in her new place.

Their slogan is spot on

5. My daughter was able to enlist a friend to carry a couple of chairs and a tv table over (using a moving company is an expensive luxury, and she only had them take the furniture items that we absolutely could not do ourselves, and, as it turns out, that they NEARLY couldn't do, either).

6. This weekend, we are bringing the last odds and ends from the old place here and then cleaning up every trace of cat hair from the cat she DID NOT HAVE (cough cough), and we will be done!

7. During all this moving, my daughter was also interviewing for summer internships for next year (yes, you read that correctly - for internships that are AN ENTIRE YEAR AWAY). She had 11 interviews the week before, and she has had several call backs this week (with more scheduled next week, as well as her law school fall semester starting). I'm thankful we (husband in tow this trip) are able to help her out as much as our feeble bodies will allow (excluding furniture, especially that damn futon).

8. I'm thankful for those huge plastic bags from IKEA. They are fantastic for moving! You can shove a lot in one, and they are pretty easy to carry, although 35 spiraling steps pushed the maneuverability of the load. Trader Joe's brown paper grocery bags also get a shout out for being sturdy and easy to carry.

9. Oh, best part of the move is my daughter has an actual parking space in an actual parking area behind her building! No more parking sometimes blocks away and making the trek, day or night, through sometimes questionable circumstances, to get to her apartment. Yay!

10. In other news, we had a little family dinner at my brother's home last weekend to celebrate my Aunt Mary Anne's 90th birthday! I brought my dad up (her "little" brother), and we had a lovely visit with her, her husband (my Uncle Gale), my cousin Cynthia (who moved to Florida a few years ago and who I wish lived closer but I SWEAR I'm going to go visit soon), my brother and sister-in-law, and my daughter. It was such fun, and we heard stories of my dad and aunt growing up that I had never heard before (it's funny how they grew up together but tell such different stories about that!).

Aunt Mary Anne, Cynthia, Emma Kate, me

My dad, Aunt Mary Anne, Uncle Gale

My brother and sister-in-law

I thought my cousin Cynthia was SO COOL
when I was younger (she is much, much older
than me), and I STILL do!

11. Also thanking my Aunt Mary Anne and my dad for passing on the good skin genes that they got from my Grandma Delpha. Underhill genes run strong! My mom always told me growing up that I had my Aunt Mary Anne's skin, and I didn't know what that meant. NOW I do! 

12. Our fall semester started last week at school, and I just finished week two with half my class being "babies" who moved up from the toddler class. They are rocking it, though, and learning how to be "big kids" in preschool! It's going to be a fun year!

I suppose I really owe 20 thankfuls, since I missed last week, but no one wants that, so 12 it is! How was your week? Can you find ten thankfuls from it? It's easier than you think. Give it a try and link up a post with us!

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Thankful And Counting

 I have many anniversaries in my life. There's the anniversary of the time my parents tried to kill me in a canoe accident (a/k/a my 10th birthday). The anniversary of the Joplin tornado. The anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis.

But today, it is my wedding anniversary, the 29th one, to be exact. We have weathered a lot of storms along the way, including literal ones. We've dealt with moving across the country, job loss, financial setbacks, illnesses, aging parents. arguments over stupid stuff, and silences over important stuff. And we have also rejoiced in having two amazing children, taking little trips when we can, working in the kitchen together, shopping for bargains, and much, much love and laughter.

So ten things of thankful? Nah, more like 29 years of thankfuls.

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I'm Conscious That I'm Thankful

I've spent the weekend working on a little project that required a great deal of scrapbooking paper and glue and led to me making a big mess of bits of paper all over my craft room, so I'm late with the Ten Things of Thankful post this weekend (correction: later than usual).

They seemed to think I needed their help.

Things that happened this week for which I am thankful:

I got to go to a conference on Conscious Discipline (and before you ask, no, it's not about being conscious someone needs to be disciplined and don't ask me how I know that) in Kansas City with my director and my grade-level partner. We. Had. Fun.

Got our picture taken with Jill Molli, the
amazing presenter of our Conscious Discipline
conference. I may or may not have asked
if I could touch her gorgeous, bouncy hair.

We picked out toys and other supplies at an educational supply store to take back with us. It's a lot more fun spending someone else's money (in this case, it was from a grant) than your own, and the nugs will enjoy using everything.

Yet again, my amazing Tetris skills came in handy when we had to fit the fruits of our shopping labor into the car, along with our suitcases and snacks and laptops and the stuff we bought at Target the night before.

Packed to the gills.

I enjoyed dinner at Minsky's pizza, which has been my favorite since I was in high school, AND I got to share it with my travel companions. They were suitably impressed, or at least gave a good performance of being so.

Driving back Tuesday night (I was the designated driver for the trip), I am thankful that I didn't hit the two fawns on the shoulder of the interstate that the person riding shotgun and, therefore, in charge of watching for deer, did not warn me about until we were right next to them. I also didn't hit the pedestrian who was wearing camo and walking on the shoulder of the interstate (take a sec and let that sink in), but I'm afraid the bat that swooped down right in front of the windshield did not fare so well....

Nikki, Alyssa, and me as we left KC

My nugs were happy to have me back, and I was happy to be back with them.

Thursday was a ROUGH morning. My class (and this is true for pretty much all children) thrives on routine, but our post-breakfast routine was interrupted when the very first kiddo to transition from table to bathroom let his little firehose get away from him and doused the bathroom floor, and the rest of the kids had to be diverted from potty time straight to play time. Yeah, THAT didn't wind them up at all.... The good news is I didn't have to hide in the bathroom and cry, and within an hour, all was well.

The school is closed this next week, so we can prepare for the fall semester, which starts on August 9 and isn't fall at all. We clean our rooms, wash all the toys, wipe down shelves, and decorate for back to school. There's always excitement in the air when it's back to school time, no matter how old you are. Something about seeing the stores stocked with crayons and glue and notebooks takes you back to your own days of going to Sears for back to school clothes with your mom. Good times.

I hope you find the thankfuls around you, too.

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Getting Used To It

Guess what? Still hot, but I think I'm becoming more acclimated to it, as long as I'm not standing on asphalt, like the fresh, new, really black kind. I guess and I can be thankful for that, as well as the following:

It was too darn hot to take my littles outside, even if they had water to play in, especially because some of them don't play in the water and instead run hell-bent for leather around the playground and risk getting overheated. We found plenty to do inside, however, including drawing with chalk and doing a LOT of exercise and movement songs to wear them out for nap!

You may remember that in the winter, I do love my snow days. We don't often get very many here (although we scored fairly well this past winter), but it's something to look forward to when winter comes. Well, we had a different version of a snow day this week, in that a water line broke to the building and school had to be canceled for Thursday. 

They weren't able to fix it on Thursday, so no school on Friday, either.

Thanks to our four day work week schedule, I was off on Monday, so I had a TWO day work week this week!

Thursday, the teachers did have a meeting at the school to go over a few things. I'm thankful I didn't have to go to the bathroom, because our only option was a sketchy gas station across the street.

Friday, six of us took a day trip to my favorite educational supply store that unfortunately is closing (I started shopping there in the early 1980s when I was still in college). We had a fun day of shopping and eating, and I got to demonstrate my mad Tetris skills by fitting a box containing an entire child's WAGON into the tiny space behind the rear seat of my van along with all the bags of loot we bought.

I got a surprise chance to go to a training on Conscious Discipline! It's in Kansas City and we are leaving in a short few minutes to drive up there. When my boss asked me if I wanted to go, I immediately jumped on it, but to be honest, if it were a training on paper clips that called for an out of town trip, I would jump on that, too.

My boss (who, bonus, is also my good friend), my grade level partner, and I will be loaded up with snacks, a rental car that I get to drive, and will not be back until Tuesday night. Woohoo! Oh, and we will learn so, so much while we are at the training!

Okay, I've got to run, so I'm invoking Secret Rule 1.3 from the Book of Secret Rules (or Secret Book of Rules) that says Imma not doing 10! 

Because I'm early for a change, you can actually link up to the Ten Things of Thanksgiving RIGHT HERE!

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A Little Bit Louder And A Little Bit Worse

Same song, second (or third or fourth or fifth) verse. It's HOT. Hotter than it's supposed to be around here. Welcome to global warming! Al Gore tried to tell everyone about it, and no one listened. We've had triple digit temps for several weeks now, plus high humidity. We can't have outdoor play time in the afternoons because of the heat index, and it is HARD to find ways to keep those littles busy and active within the confines of the building!

Onward and upward with this week's Ten Things of Thankful:

Our upstairs air conditioner conked out again and was revived on Thursday. Hopefully this is not the beginning of the end for the unit. We will keep babying it along as long as we possibly can!

Popsicles are wonderful for cooling off and for making little nugs a happy, sticky mess!

I am thankful for little things that make me smile, like what I found on the fire alarm across from my room this week:

We got a brief respite from the heat on Tuesday when it sprinkled lightly for about twenty minutes. I wasted no time getting my class outside to run around in it! They had a ball playing in the rain, and I didn't even mind that it made my hair frizz.

I'm reaching my water goal every day!

The discovery of the recirculate air button in my car has continued to dazzle me. Boy, do I feel silly that I didn't know about it sooner!

My friend and preschool mom Lauren gifted me with a shirt and a bag, plus a shirt for my daughter. Make good trouble!

I signed up to write postcards to encourage voting in the November elections. I did it two years ago, and it's not easy to write 200 postcards (and bless those folks who do more!), but it's rewarding.

My daughter finished her law school finals for her summer classes and got to come to the lake house for the weekend and relax. Next up will be helping her move into a new apartment before school starts again.

My husband and I enjoyed a couple of hours at White Water theme park Saturday evening. Taking a dip in a pool is a great way to cool off before going home and going to bed. If I could afford it, I would have a swimming pool of my own, but instead, I content myself with occasional visits to White Water and with taking a long bubble bath in my big bathtub.

Keep cool! Eat popsicles! Drink your water! Write your Ten Things of Thankful and meet me here next weekend!

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I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

I LOVE my four day work week in the summer, but there are two negatives to having Mondays off:

I miss my little nugs when I'm not there with them.

I forget that Sunday is not just another Saturday and I come in hot getting my Ten Things of Thankful post written before the midnight CDT deadline.

Here's my list:

I am thankful for Mimi of messymimi's meanderings for always being at the hop (and if I ever think I have a busy schedule, I read just one DAY from Mimi's week and realize I'm quite a slug) and for always, ALWAYS having kind words for everyone. 

I'm thankful for my student workers. I can't name them without leaving someone out, but I love and appreciate them and could not do my job without them.

Okay, I'm going to call one student worker out, because Yoshito and I have spent a lot of time together the past two weeks, and I have laughed more with him than I have laughed in a long time. After seeing a pool noodle water wall on Pinterest, I bought all the materials to make one for our playground, and Yoshito and I spent what seemed like an eternity making it happen on the hottest day of the year (100 degrees with a heat index of 107). I was so proud of it that I took a video of our test run, only, well, you'll have to watch the video....

The inspiration from Pinterest.

The finished project

I SWEAR I was looking at the screen as I recorded this. I claim the heat skewed it. My daughter says I was what was skewed by the heat. I found it a hilarious cinematography fail. And this is the kind of stuff Yoshito has to put up with from me all the time, bless his heart.

Thanks to the 4th of July holiday, I had a three day work week instead of four (and that's instead of five!)

My daughter was approved to move into a different apartment. The one she's been in has some rather, um, interesting (sketchy) tenants, and I'm thankful she found a place in a quiet neighborhood in a house with only two other apartments. With everything she had to do to get approved, it appears the other tenants are also fully vetted and life in that building will be less...exciting.

I finally looked over a large, old chest of drawers my husband brought home from a thrift store last winter and found the inside to be completely clean and spider web free and the finish on it isn't as bad as I thought it was. I used some Old English scratch remover on it, and it looks pretty darn good! Some day, I can refinish it, but for now, it's perfectly fine to use. It's now in my bedroom at the lake house and being fully utilized.

One last thankful to Lisa at Prolific Pulse and Clark at The Wakefield Doctrine, my co-hosts at the Ten Things of Thankful. Our little weekly blog hop keeps puttering along thanks to them. 

Join the TToT every weekend. We are here. 

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Lemonade Or Lemon Juice?

I'm not feeling very patriarchy, I mean, patriotic this 4th of July weekend. I think I'll turn my negativity into thankfuls, kind of like making lemonade out of lemons. Of course, we all know you need sugar to make that lemonade any good, otherwise you've just got lemon juice. Let's see how I do:

1.-3. I have to watch for deer every morning when I drive to work, as they can't tell time and don't seem to know when it's time to go back to the woods and hide for the day. On the way home, in the middle of the afternoon and especially in this heat, it's not a worry. Then there was Wednesday. I was driving between a wooded area and a big, grassy area when a large deer came bounding across the field and across the road in front of me. I stopped the car as I saw her coming, knowing deer have NO BRAKES and can and will run right into the side of the car, and as I watched her bound across the road and disappear into the brush, I looked to the grassy field (deer are seldom solo animals, so I was looking for her friends) and saw not one, but two fawns bouncing along after her. The first one boinged across in front of me and into the ditch on the opposite side of the road and froze as the second one boingedy boinged onto the road, then stopped in front of the car and looked at me. Cars are lining up behind me as I rolled down the window and told him to keep going, finally clapping my hands out the window to scare him into running to the ditch, where he joined his twin. Then instead of running into the brush like their good-for-nothing mama, they ran DOWN the ditch, me keeping pace with them, trying to protect the little goofballs from running back into traffic. A few yards later, they passed the brush their mama disappeared into and off they ran for the woods. Whew! 

I didn't hit them.

They didn't hit me.

I held up traffic for several minutes and no one honked.

4. The air conditioner in my car has not been working very well. It blows coolish air about 75% of the time, and 25% it's just plain warm. Then I read a little blurb that popped up on Facebook (Huff Post, maybe?) about the recirculated air button on the dashboard and that it should be turned on in hot weather. Without the button pushed, the a/c is using hot air from outside and trying to cool it down, but when you get in the hot car and turn on the a/c, that air is still cooler than the air in the car, and if that air is recirculated, it gets cooler and cooler until it's as cool as it can possibly be. It appears I have saved myself servicing on my a/c with the push of a button.

5. I baked a turkey breast this weekend that we had in the freezer. It was a chesty turkey, weighing almost 10 pounds, and when I was taking it out of the oven a few hours later, I didn't spill ALL the drippings in the bottom of the oven....

6. Brown recluse spiders are very common in the midwest. We seem to have more than our fair share of them, between the lake house and our own house, and they are not so reclusive in hot weather. Like now. My daughter was down for the weekend, and one ran across the back of the couch where she was sitting and down the arm and disappeared. There was much screaming, but she didn't get bitten!

7. My daughter brought her cat Calvin with her to the lake house. He's a big ol' funny guy except around 4:30 every morning when he becomes possessed by the devil and races around the house, knocking things over and otherwise wreaking havoc. During his early Saturday morning zoom session, my husband was awakened when he could no longer breathe, and as he yanked his CPAP mask off, he saw Calvin sitting on his bedside table with a foot on the air hose. Was Calvin trying to kill him? Possibly, but it didn't happen THIS time!

8. Sunday morning, I walked into the kitchen to make breakfast for my family and found my dad's pill organizer on the floor with pills scattered around it. We all know who did it, right? Fortunately for Calvin, the only little door that popped open was one that he used to store extras. Had it been more than that, well, I don't want to think about what a mess that would have been to straighten out.

9. I cleaned out the pantry at the lake house. It's been a disaster for months, but it's nice and neat now. I had to throw out some boxed food that had expired (we laid in a lot of food when the Covid lockdown started), but it means we had plenty and can be thankful for that.

10. My friend and co-host Pat of A Season and a Time is stepping down, but I am thankful that the Ten Things of Thankful allowed me to meet first her daughter (and original co-host) Kristi, then Pat herself, and I am blessed to call them both friends (AND cousins!).

Did I add enough sugar to those lemons to get lemonade? I think maybe I did!

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