Thankful Thursday

 

Happy Thursday, friends! I am joining Rebecca Jo and Leslie once again for this weekly blog post. Can you believe that one week from today is Thanksgiving? 

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I've been meaning to share this song with you! This is one of my favorite songs right now and I'm going to warn you that it may cause you to cry. My friend told me this on Sunday—she said she started listening to it and she had to turn it off. I never MEAN to make you cry, but it's a beautiful song. This is The Thanksgiving Song sung by Ben Rector.

That leads me to my first thing to be thankful for this week—the gift of good music. Have I told you that my dad and I often listen to music on Fridays when he's here? I get my love of music from him and it seems like a lot of my childhood memories are interwoven with songs we listened to or sang together. (We used to sing in choir together!) He used to take me to school every morning and we loved to listen to worship music on the way there. We loved singing together and to this day, he has a beautiful tenor voice. I love to hear him sing. 

On Fridays we listen to different styles of music—sometimes it may be a worship song I want him to hear, or we'll listen to light jazz. That's one of his favorites. Just a couple of weeks ago I introduced him to Kristin Chenoweth. Have you heard her sing? I always knew her as an actress, but she has a beautiful voice! Here's a song I love that she sings. It brought both Dad and me to tears when we listened together two weeks ago. 

This is A House is not a Home by Kristin Chenoweth.

As a side note, she is the actress in my favorite Hallmark Christmas movie, A Christmas Love Story. She co-stars with Scott Wolf, also known as Bailey from our own favorite show—Party of Five, that ran from 1994-2000. When we watched this show, we always said if we had a son that we would name him Bailey. Well, we had a son, but we forgot about the name Bailey and named him Graham. I'm glad we named him Graham—he actually has several friends named Bailey, but his name is rare. 

I'm also thankful for good movies. I've watched some great Hallmark Christmas movies already, one of which was My Family Tree. I think it came on Saturday night, but I watched it Sunday night. I love it when the acting is really good. The love of a good movie is something else I share with Dad. When I as young, he subscribed to a class movie of the month type club and he raised me on classic movies and musicals. Our very favorite was always The Sound of Music. We watched it almost every week. We also loved Singing in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis, That's Entertainment!, and South Pacific. To this day, I love musicals. Remember when La La Land came out several years ago? I saw it twice in the theater! It was the same for me with The Greatest Showman. I drug my best friend with me to see them both and she was such a great sport.

I fell asleep praying Monday night and thanking God for our family. In one week, I have seen all three sets of our parents. I saw Dad and Sandy on Friday, Mom and Bill on Friday night and Phyllis and Wiley on Tuesday. The Lord is so sweet to allow me quality time with each of them. I also regularly talk to my siblings—I feel like this is such a rare gift. Are normal people as close to their family members as we are? Aside from this, my boys talk to me all the time and when I don't see them in person, they call me. Graham calls me as he drives a lot. Jonah is starting to do the same. Drew has started that as well, since he started working at St. Jude. Noah prefers to talk in person, and I am okay with that. I am writing this post on Tuesday night, but when he came home from work today, he sat down to tell me about his day. He was really frustrated and we sat down so he could talk it out and process the terrible day he had. I am so grateful to be so close to my sons. 

This was us after we got our peppermint milkshakes from Chick-Fil-A! I haven't had one of those in years.

This was Mom, Trish and me this past Saturday. I am always thankful for quality time. Give me that over a gift any day of the week!

I am thankful for social media—and I know that sounds strange, but here's why. I love the memories that pop up each day! Had it not been for that, I would not have been inspired for my blog post on Wednesday, where I shared something a friend of mine taught on a retreat several years ago. The message was on the topic of forgiveness. If you missed it, I'd love for you to read it! Click HERE to get to that post.

I am thankful that I went to the eye doctor this week. My prescription has changed a bunch, so I'll be wearing glasses all the time now. I have to schedule an appointment with an ophthalmologist as well because I have the beginning of glaucoma. Oh, the joys of growing older! But seriously—I am grateful to be able to gracefully (or not so gracefully?) grow old. 

I am thankful for fun memories with great friends! In this picture above, my friend Wendy and I became the new kind of friends—the kind who share a bus seat and a hotel room. We sing on the praise team together in choir at church and in 2018 we took a trip to Mobile, Alabama for a Christmas concert. We got there and got changed, went to dinner, went to the concert and got to our room and into our pajamas to watch a Hallmark Christmas movie. I love this sweet friend! 

I already mentioned music and being thankful for it—but I love Spotify! I am on there as allboys-us in case you want to follow me. I made my account public for this reason and if I do say so myself, I have made some pretty great playlists. My favorite is that Christmas 2020. 

Well, I'll wrap this post up with that. Thanks for reading, friends! Love to all. ❤

 

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