Thankful Thursday

• A new niece!!! Mandi had her baby this morning at about 6:30 Texas time. She weighed 8 pounds 3 ounces, and I forgot to ask how long she was. They don't have a name picked yet - they are still debating between three or four different ones. Mandi had her at home. Not the way I would have done it, but everything went very well and everyone is happy and healthy, so all's good.
  
• Paintable caulk - it makes all the trim look so neat and pretty after it's painted. You can't see any gaps from my in-expert work. Actually, the gaps were only partly from my in-expert work. The other part is the in-expert work of the Turvorts, from whom we bought this house. They apparently don't know what "square" or "flush" means. But like I said, paintable caulk hides lots of those imperfections and makes it pretty.
• Healthy children. A couple in our ward just had their third child - a little girl. She is missing part of her brain, and she is missing her pallette (there is no division between her mouth and her nasal passages, so she can't eat and breathe at the same time), and there are other problems as well. She is still in the NICU, of course, and they don't know when she'll be able to come home. We took dinner over to them yesterday, and Kazia, the mom, said that they had just gotten back from seeing her at the hospital. It just hit me then how hard it would be to leave baby in the hospital every day. Of course, they have two older children to take care of, so it's not like they can just camp out at the hospital 24/7, but I'm not sure how well I would cope with leaving my baby.
• My sewing room. It's a huge mess because I have too many projects and too much stuff, but I love to go in there and create. When I'm sewing I don't have to concentrate very much, so I get lots of thinking done. It's just nice quiet time for me.
• Sleep. I'm not getting much of it these days. I've been staying up until midnight or so sewing, and then Faith wakes up at about 2:00, then about 4:00, then about 6:00. I don't know what the deal is. And then Michael wakes up, too. Last night I was up three times with her and once with him, all between midnight and 6:30. Two hours of continuous sleep seems like such a fantasy right now. Someday.
• My mom. One of my friends' mothers is dying. She has brain cancer, and the doctors have given her only a few weeks to live. I've been reading her blog, and her sister's blog (even though I've never met her sister), and the thoughts that they've expressed have been very touching to me. I'm so grateful for my mom, and I don't know what I would do without her.
• My dad. He calls me every once in a while out of the blue just to talk - usually about Michael and how he's doing at school, or with eating, or whatever. I appreciate those calls so much.
• Lists. I know, Jeff, how much you hate my lists. But they keep me feeling organized and productive. I make lists of what needs to be done, and I organize those lists into days, so I know what to do each day to get everything done. When my life gets crazy, those lists are how I stay sane. So Jeff, you really should be grateful for them, too. :) And besides, there is nothing quite as satisfying to me as crossing items off my list. I know, I know, I'm a little bit compulsive, but it works for me.

Okay, so I usually do five things for Thankful Thursday, but this week I did eight. Almost makes up for missing a week, huh? Now I have to go make some lists - we're going camping this weekend with Jeff's family, and I have to make a list of what to pack, a list of what to buy for our meals, and a list of everything else I have to do before we go.