Week 4: A New Year of Life! 36 Blessings

In Week 4, I celebrated 36 wonderful years of life. What could amplify newness better than a birthday? I am grateful for each year, but I have to say: They just keep getting better! So, new for Week 4 (besides a new year of life) is a list I have created of 36 things I am grateful for. I have never done this before, but it seems like a pretty great tradition to carry on for as many birthdays as I live to see! Obviously, this list is in no particular order, so don't try to analyze the order or the capitalization. Think of it like a 3-dimensional web:

1. Love - The ability to give and accept it in all forms, especially that which has saved my soul...and also that which has offered a listening ear and a good glass of wine when I have needed it most, and recently, I have needed it most :)
2. Family - I have the best husband and little boy in the World, but as a unit, we are my favorite. Also, my immediate family (parents and siblings/siblings spouse's & kiddos)
3. clean water
4. Freedom - both personal and National
5. feminism - Yes, I am thankful for feminism. 
6. Equality
7. Creativity
8. Art
9. Science
10. Food - the ability to both cook and eat it. And have it so readily available and well-preserved.
11. medicine
12. language
13. maps
14. chocolate
15. coffee
16. trees
17. having a good car
18. literacy
19. poetry
20. vaccines
21. wildlife and the truly open, wild places of this World
22. air conditioning and central heating
23. the internet
24. flowers
25. use of all my limbs
26. ability to run
27. the phone
28. libraries
29. the ability to see color and my eyesight in general
30. having all of my teeth
31. ability to absorb information and recall it
32. photographs
33. teachers
34. the belief that justice will prevail
35. the ability to tell the truth
36. the responsibility of raising the most amazing little boy I have every known and having this very special year of quality time with him before he grows up into the man he will one day become    

Here are some other new things that we tried in Week 4:

• a new hiking trail in the bottomlands of the NE Kansas riparian area, where we saw the largest formation of (I think) snow geese that I have ever seen in my life - AMAZING

• tried lifting the head of my bed per my Dad's advice for better breathing (testing sleep apnea theory). I have had solid nights of sleep without waking up from "panic attacks" ever since. Planning on calling Dr. about doing a sleep study, but in the mean time, I now know I am not just "going crazy". Sleep is no joke.

• puzzles. Henry has never shown interest in them, but since he loved and conquered his 3-D shapes puzzle, I thought maybe I would pull out the regular kid puzzles again and see how he did. He did all of them in like, 12 seconds and then just looked at me like, "is that it?" :) He's a puzzle maniac, unlike his momma!

• started a new crochet project and a new book, this time a work of fiction: The Kindness of Strangers, by Katrina Kittle. So far, it is okay in that it is holding my interest. I like the style of writing, and I would guess that Barbara Kingsolver was one of her greatest influences in the writing world, whose works I also love dearly.