
Ten Things Of Thankful: Rainy Days Edition
It’s raining. Again.
I could be all “April showers bring May flowers” but the flowers and trees and grasses really just bring on allergic reactions, so it’s a struggle to appreciate the “ending a drought” aspect of the current situation. Particularly since the volume of rainfall is making me consider brushing up my Ark building skills, and also because we’re in the process of building a pool, and we’re only to the “dig a giant hole in the ground” stage. Given the current forecast of rain for the next 15 days, it becomes a bit worrisome.
So I shall dig deep into my soggy wellies and offer up my ten things of thankful for the week, late as usual.
1.I’m grateful that we were not over scheduled this weekend, nor did we feel the need to fill all the minutes doing, and were able to just be. The mornings were gray and wet outdoors, and indoors was cozy and comfortable, and we stayed in pajamas and read, and watched soccer. I find comfort and peace when a storm is raging outside, thunder crashing overhead, and I can burrow deeper into the covers or under an afghan with the dog draped across my feet.
I’m overwhelmingly thankful that the dog never possesses herself to wake me up when she needs to go outside; the gratitude continues that the Hubs never pretends to be asleep so I don’t have to take her out, either. And, when I wake, I feel terribly guilty that the furry beast has woken him, the one who deserves to have a day of sleeping in, and not me.
But only for a moment, as I also realize that the Hubs has made coffee. Life is good.
Related: new coffee mugs make me happy. Especially when my kids get it. And they sing.
With all the rain expected after all that has fallen, the builder opted to “flash spray” the dirt hole, so there is now two inches of concrete under the rebar keeping my (future) pool walls from collapsing. The idea of a pool collapse never crossed my mind until he brought it up, so I suppose in this case ignorance was bliss.
Since the backyard is a muddy swamp of a construction zone, we can’t let Macy go out back to run around, and if you know anything about English cocker spaniels, they are high energy, so it goes without saying that I’m hitting my step count most days by noon. Yay, extra exercise.
Good rain coats are a necessity. I’m still wearing the Boden mac I bought in the UK when we first arrived in 2009, and it’s still going strong.
I booked a sitter (at the last-minute, because I always forget these things) for a fundraiser we were supposed to attend on Saturday, only to discover that my husband gave the tickets away to co-workers. Oops, I missed that memo, so it was a fortunate stroke of serendipity: date night, and dinner and a movie, and only minimal child-centric talk.
My son had his first band solo contest. To be honest, he practices at home on a drum pad, so with the door shut, we only hear a quiet tapping. Hearing him play on a proper snare for a proctor was one thing; to hear him talk about flams and grace notes during feedback with the proctor gave me a new appreciation for how much he has learned and how serious he has taken his studies.
And it made me quite thankful for the existence of the drum pad, because now I know just how loud the drum set he’s saving for will be.
A semi-flippant tweet generated an unexpected response, one made me feel appreciated, and led to a generous offer at an upcoming festival. While the likelihood of my actually making it back to the UK in early June for the festival is more of a pipe dream than a reality, the actual offer sent me a bit over the moon. A girl can dream, you know.
That’s it for me this week. I’ll be very thankful indeed if I can get my act together next week to link up with the rest of the lovely #10Thankful contributors.

