Make Good Trouble

You know what I finally figured out? No one can steal your happy. If someone takes your happy away, it's only because you handed it over to them. 

Pity Party over. It's time to resist and make good trouble....

Now let's get to those thankfuls:

1. I'm thankful for Heather Cox Richardson and her insight as a historian into current events.

2. I'm thankful for writer Kate Bowler, professor of religious history at Duke University, for reminding me that it is a terrible, beautiful world in which everything happens. Her devotionals always hit hard.

3. The bitterly cold weather has retreated and we are having seasonable weather now. I can deal with seasonal.

4. There's been an owl hanging out near my house for the past month or so. I used the Merlin Bird ID app to record him and found he is a Great Horned Owl. There are woods behind my house, and I couldn't narrow down where, exactly, the sound was coming from, but one night this week, I got home from work right at dusk, and he was hooty-hooing on a pretty regular basis. I walked towards the sound, just past my next door neighbor's house, and I heard him clearly. Looked up, and saw his profile way up on a limb of a tree about 20 feet away. He's sneaky! I sure enjoy hearing him at night. It's a very soothing sound.

Can you see him? 

5.-8. After cleaning out our refrigerator one Saturday right after our big (for us) snow, I noticed some water that appeared to be coming out from under the baseboard between the fridge and the hallway to our living room. Weird. Checked the basement below it and found water POURING out of the ceiling from the vicinity of the water found in the kitchen. I yelled for my husband, and we grabbed buckets and towels and rubbermaid tubs. Water was pouring in streams from a doorway and also from the ceiling in several places, including over and around a light bulb. Chaos ensued, and our first thought was it was an ice dam on the roof caused by melting snow and an old roof (there was no visible leaking on the second floor). My husband kept saying "there's a finite amount of snow up there, so it should stop soon." It did not. Then on a whim, I turned off our water where it enters the house, and within ten seconds, the water slowed to a trickle. Now instead of needing a roofer, we needed a plumber. Dreading that the plumber was going to tell us our 100 year old pipes had fallen apart somewhere in the area between the basement ceiling and the first floor and wondering how many possible tens of thousands of dollars the damage could end up being, the plumber said it was coming from the little hose that leads to the refrigerator for the ice maker THAT WE DON'T EVEN HAVE. When we were cleaning out the fridge, we pulled it away from the wall a little, and in pushing it back, we ran over the line. Soooo, it was self-inflicted. It has to dry out now, and we will need a little patching of the basement ceiling, but good news that it wasn't worse! And that our basement is just a basement and isn't a finished room. And that our ancient (as in at least 40 years old and probably older) chest deep freeze that once belonged to my grandma did not suffer, as it was under the stream of water. fyi at least 20 gallons of water poured through the ceiling, not counting what missed the buckets.

9. I'm thankful for my school family. I have the sweetest class! They can be a handful, but they are loving and funny and inquisitive, and we are having a great year!

10. A month ago today, I gave up ultra processed foods, as well as caffeine, flour, sugar, and, well, pretty much everything except lean meat, some dairy, fruits, and vegetables. I listened to a podcast of NPR On Point about UPFs right before Christmas and it stuck with me. What also stuck with me was all the cookies and candy and snackies and cheese that I had consumed from Halloween until Christmas, so I made a change. I told myself I'd do it for a month and see how it goes. It's been a month and I'm going to continue. I feel better. I've lost a few pounds. I'm saving money by not eating out. Yay, me!

Oh, and a bonus thankful:

HOW 'BOUT THOSE CHIEEEEEEEEEFS???

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