Saturday Gratitude 4th edition

It is a beautiful, although chilly, winter Saturday morning. What's not to be thankful for? I used to work with a man who when asked how he was on a Friday morning would reply, "It's Friday. I'm great! It would take a real pessimist to complain on a Friday."

It's a gorgeous Saturday here in Georgia. We are healthy. We are happy. We are blessed with a roof over our heads, more than enough to eat, and good family and friends. Our problems are small in the grand scheme of things. It would take a real pessimist to complain! Life is good.

Today, I am particularly thankful for:
1. Positive role models for our children. I have a great, big wonderful family full of wonderful examples for my children. We have a school full of teachers who lead my children daily in positive, firm, loving ways. Our church is full of wonderful, loving men and women who strive to live their lives in the best ways possible. The basketball program in our area is fantastic. Even the referee will stop and patiently explain a procedure and let the children try again. We are surrounded by wonderful examples of leadership, love, compassion, empathy, responsibility, hard work, and diligence.

Yesterday at work we had a "super cool" football player and cheerleader from the local high school come to visit our 1st graders. They read books and talked to the kids about the importance of learning and working hard. Our first graders were incredibly impressed and LOVED having these two "cool kids" talking to them and reading to them! What great examples our children have to follow!

2. Modern medicine. The medical field seems to be making huge strides in finding cures for all kinds of problems from allergies to serious illnesses. During the night I watched a TV news show talking about the progress medical experts have made in developing medicines for cervical cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and other serious illnesses. It's amazing. Although there's no cure for many of these diseases yet, it appears to me that medical experts making great progress in finding cures, slowing down the progression of diseases, and making patients more comfortable as they deal with them. Even the smaller, every day struggles that people face such as allergies, infections, high blood pressure, have treatments that seem to be improving. I'm thankful for our advancements in medication.

3. Ant killer! Yes, in #2 I'm thankful for all the modern advances that are saving lives and in #3 I'm happy little bug lives are being ended. We woke up this morning and our master bathroom counter was covered in little, black ants. That's happened a couple of times since we've been in this house. EWWWW! They were on everything on our counter. Yuck. It's taken a lot of restraint for me not to toss everything in our bathroom out and make a trip to Walmart and replenish with items I know haven't had ants crawling on them! Ugh. RJ sprayed and although the house doesn't have the most fragrant odor, the ants are gone.

4. Older parents. RJ and I have 3 children - 9 years, 8 years, and 5 years old. We are both in our forties. We are older parents. When it comes to activities for our children we are frequently the oldest parents in attendance. As a matter of fact, we've laughed about our Sunday School class. We joined a class many years ago that was labeled "young parents." It was actually a class of adults with young children. RJ and I were among the oldest people in the class, but our children were the youngest. We've gotten used to it and it's never been a big deal or caused any uncomfortable feelings - it's just an observation on our part. However this weekend I had a refreshing experience. My oldest daughter, B, was invited to a sleep-over party with a school friend. I didn't know the parents, so made an effort to get to know them and find out about the party before hand. Almost every girl in her 4th grade class was going to this party. Last night, when I took her to the little girl's house, the mothers were almost all around my age. Now, it is true that for most of the parents, their 4th grader was their YOUNGEST child and for us she is our OLDEST, but still, they were all middle-aged moms of a 4th grader. I had a nice time talking to these moms. Not a single one of them was tall, skinny, blonde and said, "like" every other word. Everyone looked a little tired, but happy, and no one looked or acted like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine. It wasn't until I left the house that it dawned on me that we were all about the same age. I don't think about age much and it only caught my attention because it was an unusual situation for me. The mother was aware that we would feel better getting to know her a little. She told us how she planned the evening and assured us the girls would be well supervised. We had things in common, responded to our children in like ways, and needed assurances before we felt free to leave our girls. The parents of my children's friends are good, nice people no matter what their age, but there was something very refreshing about meeting a group of women in the same station of life as I. I mean, it was, like, totally awesome! :-)