I am sure that there are many I've missed, and there are some which I won't be specific about here in our "online family scrapbook."
The gospel, scriptures, a living prophet, priesthood blessings and ordinances, temples, fellow saints.
music!
Plumbing, electricity, heat, use of modern washing machine & dryer (thanks Mom), air filters, modern medicine and equipment, modern computers and internet to keep up with family and communicate with kids' teachers and my professors (thanks M & R, and Dad), and most of all, hot water heaters and shower hoses.
Awesome, amazing, inspired, wonderful family, friends, teachers, leaders, co-workers, students and a sweet little Kindergartner who even gave the yard duty a hand written Christmas card.
New people who, even though I JUST met them a few minutes before, their first response when I burst into tears for the 5th time that day, is commenting that I must be a good mom, when I feel like anything but.
Finding a few remaining pairs of cargo jeans in men's sizes, and not too expensive, and more bags of nice hand-me-downs, yeah!
Kind sales clerks who, like in the Miracle on 34th Street, still help me hunt down what I'm looking for, even if it's not at their store, or any of their other locations, or their online orders site.
Nutcracker tickets and Mother-Daughter dates.
Finding a pretty, and free, Christmas tree for the sister I visit teach.
Snowplows! (even if my kids think they are the enemy)
3 whole months without a need to visit the ER, yippee! and so far no one has had more than a couple-day cold/upset "tummy."
Holidays!!!
Just happening to find perhaps the LAST packages of Mothers cookies on the planet in Grocery Outlet the day after lamenting with a Safeway manager, who is also an old school mate of mine, that Mothers cookies were no more, when we blissfully each remembered and related pleasant memories of the striped topped bags of cookies in our childhoods. And Grocery Outlet had the little gingerbread shortbread cookies, my ALL TIME FAVORITES, and they don't expire until March, and they were only a dollar! The only thing I could find wrong with them was that they didn't stand absolutely straight, one arm is higher than the other so they all look like they are waving, fine with me, they can wave their way into our mouths as we enjoy them. (I didn't buy ALL of them, and I told the Safeway manager when I saw him a couple days later, so I wasn't a complete Scrooge, it is Christmas.)
Waking up the day of my Composition class final to snow (which I'd kind of expected and had moved the car to a better spot the night before), taking longer to get ready adding extra layers of clothing, and being able to get the chains on with the help of wonderful sons (who aren't always wonderful but in moments like that, they are SO good to me) which took longer than usual because we had to dig snow away to get to the wheels, and started to get anxious, knowing I was going to be really late for my final by the time I dropped the kids off at their schools and dealt with the snowy morning traffic jams in the parking areas of said schools. But then, just as we finished getting the chains on, the Elementary School bus came along (not its usual time) and three children were whisked safely off to extended day and school (when the roads are dangerous, the school bus - with it's experienced driver, the weight and power of the bus, and the chains for the bus, with it's own pick up/drop off area at the school right next to the sidewalk cleared by the wonderful hardworking school custodians - is the safest way for children to get to and from school). Chains on, three kids gone and safe, we made it on to the road and worked our way toward the highway and as we approached an intersection, there was the high school bus (not its usual time either) picking up kids, and my other child was picked up and safely whisked off to school and his finals-prep-day. I made it onto the highway, drove through snow and icy slush on the freeway most of the way to the college, was finally able to remove the chains (all by myself, thank you very much to Mom who purchased my awesome chains last year) and continue on my way, I actually found a parking spot in the main lot and didn't have to go across the street and hike back up (like usual if you're not there really early), there was actually a working umbrella in the car, and I made it through the parking lot, up the sidewalks and steps, and into class ONLY 20 minutes late. Later, it hit me how everything had worked like clockwork and that I'd gotten there at all, and safely. I am so blessed!
