Today

Today I am grateful for a dining room table of girls to teach.

Today I am grateful for the hot chocolate I am sipping.

Today I am grateful for a husband who works hard and is so incredibly kind and thoughtful.

Today I am grateful for the snuggly pets we own, the swishy fishy, and the roadrunner we have seen streaking through our backyard this past week.  (Incidentally, they do NOT look like Looney Tunes)

Today I am grateful for friends who send me country home house listings and for future coffee dates.

Today I am grateful for an amazing vet office, with kind and compassionate staff.

Today I am grateful that some human anti-epileptics transfer over to dogs.  (Arendale had a seizure as we walked into the vet office last week for his check-up.  I HATE seizures.)

Today I am grateful that fall is closer and closer with each day that I check off on my calendar.

Today I am grateful for the fact that some people draw a line in the sand and say, "I will NOT cross that line, no matter what everyone else does."

Today I am grateful for good books and great discussions.

I am looking forward to homemade bread, beef stews & chilis, pumpkin spice candles, hot coffee in delicate china cups, my birthday!!! *even though I will be 43 (where has the time gone?!?!).  I am looking forward to warm jackets and see your breath mornings, crunchy fall leaves, running and not feeling like I need a portable air conditioner just to make it through.  I am looking forward to the holidays and pumpkin pies and warm cookies.

Always I am grateful that God woke me up this morning, that His Word was here to greet me and a fresh new day, just as it is there at the end of a long, awful day, to comfort me (especially when it was me who was awful!) and soothe me before bed.

Always I am grateful that Jesus came, lived the life He lived, died the death He died, and that He lives right now, interceding on our behalf in the very presence of God.