Monday

It's Monday. The day when laundry piled high is sorted, washed and dried, folded and put away...in order to be worn and dirtied again. The day when beds are stripped and bedding is washed and put back on...in order to be slept on again. The day when dirty dishes ignored on a lazy Sunday are scrubbed...in order to be used again.

It's the day when lists are made. Lists for the days of the week and what I will feed my family those days. Lists for the food to buy at the grocery store to match the menu listed. Mental lists of tasks to complete and accomplish this week. And lists of thanks.

When the weeks of Christmas and New Years and living room projects and the numb week following a friend's accident all blend together and the habit of typing thanks on Mondays seems to be pushed into the shadows, I tell myself, I won't give up on my goal and I will catch up.

The endless ways God makes His grace manifest to me in the seemingly ordinary, in the miraculous, and in the humbling are all tallied and noted. I will continue to find the beauty in the plain, the glory in the ordinary, and the miracle in the pain. I will stop, I will let go, I will bend down low and once again step off this world's crazy train.

And here I am catching up and linking up and listing...

Thank you God for:
#81. "sleigh" rides for the tots at Christmas
#82. a living room remodel complete
#83. and completely paid for
#84. new games for Christmas to play with the tots on long, cold days
#85. meeting a girlfriend at the gym to let the kids run around
#86. a very low stress birthday party weekend for 2 little 3 year olds
#87. Netflix
#88. the cast off the little girl's arm
#89. little voices asking me to read "one more book"
#90. seed catalogs in the mail
#91. enjoying garden produce in the midst of winter
#92. the friend walking again
#93. the friend's brother driving over in wintery weather just to drop off the humidifier for our furnace
#94. the weight of a homemade afghan given to us by a friend at our wedding on a cold evening
#95. all the snow still clinging to the trees
#96. just enough time between snow storms to push back all the snow
#97. four wheel drive vehicles
#98. the whistle of a tea kettle ready to be poured out
#99. leftover ice cream cake
#100. the neighbor's grove
#101. and our grove with all it's wind-stopping power
#102. 2 tots converted to twin beds from cribs with very little "issues"
#103. grace for all of us when it was time to pull the plug on naptime for the tots
#104. bedtime going better because of no naptime
#105. the little girl starting to pray on her own
#106. the lovely children's book pointing out that summer really begins on Dec 21st when the days slowly start growing longer (conversely, winter begins on June 21, but we're not gonna think about that one)
#107. the smell and feel of clean sheets
#108. the meal prepared by the husband's mom during our remodeling project
#109. the weight of the little boy's hand on my head when he doesn't want me to get up and leave his bed
#110. that the two little bodies of my tots still fit on my lap in 1 chair all snuggled underneath an old comforter