Agh! I've Been Absent Too Long!

I was amazed to see, when I logged in to my blogger this morning, that I'm up to a whopping 16 followers! Either I wasn't paying attention (most likely)or I had some new folks jump on the Mawkishness train in my absence. Either way, it's just been too long since I posted something. Wildblue satellite internet doesn't make it easy when they stick me in detention. What is internet detention? Well, it's sort of like an oubliette-where you put people to forget about them. Technically, it's what happens when you exceed your download limit or your upload limit. Since we're not /so/ into uploading stuff, that's never really been a problem for our family. Our problem is the pitiful download limit. We pay $90+ a month for a download limit of 17G. You may be saying, "Wow! That's great!" Not so much. This is the amount per 30 days...rolling. That 'rolling' thing has been a thorn in our side. As some of you know, we school our children at home. I download many resources to use in their classes. If I wanted to put them in an online class, they wouldn't be able to do it. There simply isn't enough download space. Streaming video and music is a no-go for us. It saps the download faster than a frog catching a fly. When our speeds are slow, we can't upload anything at all. So blogging can be really difficult when we're in Internet Detention. Ah, well, enough of that. I said it all to let you know that I'm back up and running at normal speeds after about 3 and a half weeks of slower than snot speeds.

And so, to celebrate this return to higher speeds, I'd like to list ten things I'm thankful for.

1) I'm thankful for my family. My husband and my children, my parents, my in-laws, my grandparents...they all mean so much to me and have contributed to the person I am today. I'm pretty happy being me and I thank them for helping me get there.

2) I'm thankful for the beautiful weather. Now, when I say "beautiful weather", I mean all weather. Last night we had a wonderful and much needed rain shower pass over us. Today the sun is shining and the wind is making the leaves dance in happiness. It just makes me think wonderful thoughts...or situation appropriate thoughts. (It rained when we buried my grandfather and it rained when we had the wake for my pa-pa. That's situation appropriate weather, IMO.)

3) I'm thankful for people like Jason Boyett, Tess Mallory and Matthew Paul Turner who all have fabulous blogs that make me laugh, inspire me and make me think and all from a Christian perspective. It's nice to know there are 'big name' Christians out there that are honest with the public about a whole life experience. Honestly, I just don't believe that we can be on a spiritual high all the time. That's just not the kind of person I am. And people who profess that...well, let's just say I have a very hard time believing they're truthful. Kinda like prosperity preachers-God does want us to prosper and be successful. But it isn't going to just fall into our laps. We have to go out there and work for it. As the old adage states, "Anything worth having is worth working for."

4) I'm thankful for a creative mind. Now, my mind might be sort of like gas molecules with ideas bouncing around wildly, but sometimes I do get good ideas. Putting them into good use is sometimes difficult or trying but if successful it's such a cool thing! I love being able to make things with my hands and using my mind to enhance an idea. I love the freedom that having a creative mind allows me. I find that artists and artisans are more open-minded than most folks. That's just my opinion, btw.

5) I'm thankful for my healthy living support group. You know, I never thought I'd need to be involved in a real support group of any kind but this group has really been an encouragement to me. I've learned about the health benefits of fermented foods and a wonderful website called www.pickl-it.com where you can get recipes and equipment for making those ferments. I've learned about the benefits of raw milk, though I haven't been able to test that out yet. Hopefully, in the future, Louisiana will allow raw milk sales.

6) I'm thankful for the freedom we have in our country, the best country ever! And I'm thankful /to/ the men and women who daily sacrifice for us to keep our freedoms.

7) I'm thankful for the wonderful friends I have who have opened my eyes to the truth of variety being the spice of life. They, too, have contributed to making me the person I am today. I love them for it.

8) I'm thankful for my followers on this blog. You must've seen something you liked. LOL I'm so random in my postings that there's no telling which post snagged your attention. And I'm so sporadic in my posting that you must be quite patient and easy-going. But for whatever reason you decided to join in, thanks! I'm glad you're here.

9) I'm thankful for internet resources that help me learn and explore new and exciting things. Where would we be without our sense of curiosity, our need to explore and observe the things around us? A life without curiosity and learning would be so boring! Having said that, sometimes I learn things that I wish I'd never seen or heard or read. But in the end, I have to be thankful for those things, too. Bad things exist in this world whether we accept that fact or not. And I'd rather know about them so that I can fight against them. You can't fight what you don't know. I guess I'm thankful for Sun Tzu, too. LOL I really should read 'The Art of War' for myself. I got my info from my husband who read 'The Art of War For Leaders'. I'd like to read the original book.

10) I'm thankful for the peace in my soul that comes from my personal belief in a God that cared enough to remake, recreate and reform me. 'Born again.' 'Saved.' Those terms are so well used they're a bit ragged around the edges. But they apply to me. The truth of the matter is that the other three words are really /more/ accurate. Choosing to serve God is a life-changing and ongoing thing. It isn't something that occurs once and then you go on as before. It's something that should be constant and never ending.

I've been in a kind of slump lately, feeling like I don't really know what to do next. Wondering what my purpose is. Getting bogged down in "what if's." What I need to remember is that perhaps this is a time when I need to be resting. Perhaps my purpose for now is to take a breather and refocus. Maybe, just maybe, God is telling me to be still for a time. And I have to snicker because I'm just as bad at being still as my 6yo!