Lent, Finishing Up

So technically, I've already blogged about 42 days of thankfulness during Lent -- under my way of counting the days -- so maybe you didn't expect to see the other four days on this blog.  But even though life is busy, I feel incomplete not sharing my thankful thoughts as they led all the way up to Easter Sunday.

Here we go.  (Good thing I have lots of reminders like my Instagram pictures and my calendar or I'd never remember!)

My Day 43, Wednesday, March 27

This was a happy day that ended with a Full Moon (according to my calendar).  I remember thinking on Tuesday night how full the moon looked and I think it might have been cloudy on this evening, so I felt thankful that I saw it "mostly full" the night before.

I am also very thankful for S's friend who's a boy, KF's son, AF.  He turned 18 on this day.  S and AF have been spending some time together recently and so far we are really pleased with his self-control and slow pacing in the relationship.  She is so much happier as this relationship blossoms than she's ever been with any other co-ed friendship.  He treats our daughter like a lady and that wins some major points with us as well.  It seems to come from his good upbringing and not some pretend act to gain anything immoral from our girl.  He's just a nice, well-mannered kid, who tolerates my ribbing him constantly because it gives me great pleasure to see him starting to joke back with me instead of just nodding and smiling like he did in the beginning.

I don't think he calls enough for S's liking (or at least the sound of her little pouts when she hasn't heard from him in a day), but we just keep reassuring her that slow and steady is better for them and that he has continued calling and continued coming to spend time with her, so this is all really good.  He even puts up with our boys and stays good-natured about them!  He earns a lot of good points from that because they really grill him every time he's over.

Plus, someday he says he'll take us all Airsofting so we can learn to do one of his favorite hobbies.  Sounds like fun.  Is it wrong to want our sons on the team opposite of me? (Haha.)  AND since he does a little photography on the side (mostly nature stuff), I'm going to entrust him with my Nikon D90 on graduation day so he can take photos of everything while C and I need to be up on the stage with S.  He's coming over tomorrow to familiarize himself with it a little more beforehand.

Good stuff.  (His mama reads this blog sometimes, so hopefully she is equally proud of how he's handling himself in this relationship.  KF, you have done a good job with your son for sure.)


My Day 44, Thursday, March 28 - Maundy Thursday

I don't really remember much about this day except that it started like this:

I remember feeling really hopeful about the day because of the beauty of the morning.  Weather was good and it just seemed like things were going to go really well.

Maybe they did or maybe they didn't!  I don't recall!

But the day ended like this:

And sometimes, all that's required for thankfulness are a pretty sunrise and even prettier sunset.  I was thankful to be alive and to witness God's creativity in creation of two spectacular times of the day.


My Day 45, Friday, March 29 - Good Friday!

On this day, the painters arrived bright and early.  I finished up the playroom sorting in the nick of time and got the bins all stacked in the middle so they could paint the loft along with everything else.  We left for the day to keep the kids out of the way of the painters and we were blessed with great weather, beautiful scenery and a surprise dust devil that sprang up out of nowhere right in front of us.  Awesome and exciting.

We had Panera for lunch.  Mmmm.  Good stuff for which to be thankful!

My Day 46, Saturday, March 30

The day was hectic with painters back again for the second day.  I was quickly burning out on the disarray in the household, but there was no turning back now.  I spent a good portion of the day trying to be away from the house as much as I could.

But late in the day, I went home and I saw the most beautiful thing...

The main rooms in the house were all painted new, still had fresh clean carpets and we were quickly able to put organized bins into place in the loft playroom.  Everything has its place and it makes me feel so good!  The kids are doing a much better job keeping it clean, too.

It was a breath of fresh air.  Even if it didn't last very long and I was quickly onto the next project (as mentioned in my previous post).  Even if our boys kicked a new hole/crack in the homeschool room door the next day and put a hole through one of the green-painted walls a couple days after that.  Sigh.  Not good.  But still, for the moment, I found joy.

I am thankful for that.

And by the way, here are our paint colors if you are curious -- find them in the Valspar brand at Lowe's:

I know these colors may be a bit bold for some, but it's nice to have some bold color when our outdoor surroundings are just so much tan sand.  These colors -- still all earthy in their own ways -- make me feel happy.

I think I want to do a sunshine-y yellow in my laundry room next.  But not this week.


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P.S. Sorry about the weird spacing in this post.  It's after nine now and I'm too tired to fix it.  We'll just blame it on Blogger. :-P