The Week That Ended With Pride!

Blink! Week over. Time for another installment of Ten Things of Thankful! Woohooooo!!!

I ended my TToT last week with a thankful for four day work weeks in the summer, with Mondays being my day off for June and July and THAT has the added bonus of eliminating the Sunday Scaries for me, so that's where I start this week. It's Sunday. No Scaries!

I spent my day off this past week cleaning my room. As the Keeper of Photos and Other Family Treasures, I have boxes and tubs filled with photos and mementos, all in varying stages of disarray. I'm not going to say I TOTALLY organized everything (because I totally didn't), but I DID sort through several large boxes of items and organize them by person. That's progress!

I'm working on throwing away things that absolutely no one cares about but me (and I don't even care about a great deal of it, if I'm honest), so, after looking at each one of them first, I threw away all my elementary school report cards. Well, I kept the kindergarten one just so someday, a future grandkid can see an actual antiquated paper report card. Baby steps.

While I was busy being Nelly Neat, I took down the white lace curtains in my bedroom that I bought at the same time we bought our house in California, so 31 years ago. I don't know what kind of miracle fiber they are made from, but they don't show their age and they wash and dry beautifully.

In a When You Give A Mouse A Cookie kind of way, taking the curtains down to wash highlighted how dirty the windows were. I don't have any way to clean the outsides, but I washed the kitty nose prints and dust from the insides of each window. I also opened each one and got all the dirty and crud cleaned out from the window sill, which leads me to my next thankful:

When I opened the window next to my side of the bed, a GINORMOUS and VERY FAST brown recluse spider zipped INSIDE the room. Now, I am not a screamer, but I let out a blood curdling one through my open window as I swung at the spider with a paper towel before he disappeared among the books and clutter on my bedside table. BEDSIDE table. BEDSIDE. In the meantime, I hear my husband thudding across the kitchen and up the stairs, calling out to me. I'm still hopping around and shouting that a giant spider ran in and I can't find him and something about an immediate need to put the house up for sale. My husband reached the bedroom as I gingerly moved books and reading glasses until I uncovered a maimed but very much alive FAT VENOMOUS brown recluse spider. I screamed and squished it. My husband screamed like a little girl and put himself in reverse, and apparently no one on my street was concerned that I was being murdered, because the cops didn't show up. Guess that's a thankful!

Tuesday evening, I had dinner with a very sweet 6 year old former student and his mom at their house. He was beside himself with excitement that I was there! He gave me a tour of the house, particularly, his room, plus the backyard, where I got to see his garden. He showed me all his Pokemon cards and gifted me with several of them, and we ate a delicious dinner that included vegetables from the garden. It was delightful!

And four day work week? How 'bout THREE day work week! I also took Friday off to go to Kansas City for Pride! My husband and I hit thrift stores while our daughter was at work, and we ate a lot and talked a lot and laughed a lot.

We have had more than our fair share of severe weather this spring, including tornadoes, high winds, heavy rains, and flash flooding. The forecast for Saturday morning changed a dozen times over the week, waffling from no rain at parade time to heavy rain and lightning to something in between, but that actual morning, we had to assume it was definitely going to rain. I made a quick trip to Walmart (note: big city Walmarts DO NOT compare to SW Missouri/NW Arkansas Walmarts, and if you don't know this, then you need to come visit and I'll prove it to you) and bought rain ponchos and umbrellas. My daughter decided to sleep in rather than go to the parade (in fairness, she works 60+ hour weeks as an attorney), so my husband and I loaded up a bag with our rain gear and headed to the parade. Lo and behold, the first entries had just gone past when raindrops began to fall, and for the two hours of the parade, it alternated between barely a sprinkle to torrential downpour. In spite of the ponchos and umbrellas, we were pretty wet, but there was no lightning (super thankful) and it was warm, so we weren't standing around shivering. In fact, it was probably the most fun Pride parade I've attended! Everyone was dancing in the rain and laughing and it was a true delight! Bonus thankful: my friend David joined us to watch the parade. He and I met two years ago when we just happened to be standing next to each other at the parade and hit it off. It was a joy to visit with him!

Before the deluge

In spite of his precautions, he
still got soaked

More severe weather forecast this afternoon, so we left Kansas City right after lunch and headed towards home. When we were about an hour from home, we noticed dark, angry clouds building to the west, and sure enough, yet another storm was heading our way. We made it home shortly before it hit, and that was a HUGE thankful, as this storm included blinding rain, lightning, hail, and 70 mph winds (which are enough to make the tornado sirens blow, even though it wasn't a tornado). We seem to be good for a few more hours, before another band of showers thunderstorms move in during the night. We're used to it. Shoes by the bed.

How 'bout you? Got thankfuls? Write them. Post them. Link them. The TToT hop is open until Monday night!

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