When I sat down last night to think about what I’d like to share for today’s Gratituesday post, I started to feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed in a GOOD way! You see, it’s been one crazy week of SNOW and LOW temps and MORE SNOW and VERY LOW temps. There was a lot that could have been stressful about the blizzard of the decade, like my husband had to miss two days of work because we were totally snowed in and our heater can’t keep up when the temps get below 10 degrees (which they totally did), and our daughter was supposed to leave town in the middle of this storm. Just little details, really.
But the good – oh, the good. The list is long, but here is what I’ve been thankful for over the last four to five days, in no particular order: space heaters, a full pantry full of food and yummy snacks, extended time at home with my husband, electric blankets, hot water, a freezer full of more food, warm fuzzy socks and slippers, plenty of books on my kindle app to read, no morning alarms for four days, extra time to pray and focus on business and this coming year, internet and a laptop so I could keep working and designing at home, people with snow blowers and shovels who are willing to dig out your cars for very affordable prices, electricity, streaming movies and shows to watch, and did I mention lots and lots of free time?
Allan and I are total homebodies, so a three day weekend stuck at home with nothing to do but relax and hang out is something we’re always up for, especially since the electricity, internet and space heaters all kept working. (Don’t ask what the temps were in the non-space-heated rooms – let’s just say we’re also really glad our son was away at college in a warm dorm room, since we didn’t have enough space heaters for ALL the rooms). We (crazily?) sent our daughter out the door on Friday with other youth group kids to a youth rally in Kansas City for the weekend, (and only “kind of” stalked her trip the entire way on Life 360). So, it was literally just the two of us, and HUGE snow drifts outside our doors and surrounding our cars, keeping us home.
And oh my… I totally forgot to add something to the Gratitude list. PEANUT BUTTER!! Our daughter has severe peanut allergy, and we don’t typically eat peanut butter in our house. But…with her gone for the weekend, we MIGHT have made a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (and carefully cleaned up afterwards), and we MIGHT have enjoyed those sandwiches VERY, VERY much!
So, all in all, it was a great weekend. The temps are still super low, and there is talk of more snow on Thursday, and we are kinda over it already… but I am going to keep reminding myself how blessed we are!