May 20

If you've been following along, it may already be obvious that I have a tendency to procrastinate.

Over one year ago, after seeing (and trying to play) the nearly illegible copy of a copy of a copy of my church's Old Time Hymnbook, I offered to digitize the hymns and make them a new and improved version. I've been digitizing them piecemeal since then, and probably, at the rate I was going, would have had the entire thing finished sometime in 2010. But last week, they asked that I digitize 14 out of the 22 for our Heritage Sunday services tomorrow and I figured, why not just do the whole thing and finally get out from under it?

Things always take longer than I figure. And I can always find something more interesting to do than the thing I'm supposed to be doing. I'm grateful that my procrastinative nature didn't bite me in the butt and I actually got all of those little books finished tonight, just in time.

May 19

Remember the red shoes?

Soccer season is officially over and I'm grateful that my Saturday mornings belong to me again. I believe I will celebrate by sleeping in tomorrow!

May 18

Yes, I know that just a few short weeks ago I was complaining about the cold and wishing spring would hurry up and get here already. But now it feels like we blinked and spring zipped by us. We've somehow time-traveled to the beginning of July.

I'm grateful today that our air conditioning system turned on without a hitch and started pumping cooled air through vents that just last week were warming our mornings.

May 17

There's this awful machine at Curves with which you are forced to squat in the manner of Atlas, sans the world upon your shoulders, of course. Instead of the world's weight, there are padded bars that you forcefully push up on every downbeat of the very upbeat music. Each quick push adds more hydraulic fluid into the resistance chamber, thus making the next push just a little bit harder.

Thank goodness you only have to endure it for 30 seconds.

Right now I'm grateful to whomever it was that stuck this cute little stuffed mouse into the apex of the squat machine for entertainment value. It makes me smile through my grunts.

May 16

Almost 25 years ago I decided to throw my mother a surprise birthday party. By that point, my own big "invite-a-dozen-friends-and-get-lots-of-presents" birthday bashes had hit the end of the road and I'm pretty sure the party was planned in part because I was jonesing for some cake and balloons.

My mother was pleasantly surprised when she came home to find a houseful of 12-year-old girls yelling "Happy Birthday!" But later in the evening, at the same time she was giving me motherly hugs and thanking me for the lovely party, she did mention how nice it would have been if HER friends had also been invited.

I'm grateful that she was so gracious but still got her point across. I try hard in my own life to live the lessons she taught, and always, my first rule when planning someone else's party, is to invite their friends first. Then, if there's enough cake, I can invite mine.

But really, I'm grateful that I was lucky enough to be born her daughter. Happy Birthday, Mom! You are the best!

May 15

The warming weather is proving irresistible to the mighty Earl and my plans involving him accepting the sedate life of an indoor cat have been cut short. This afternoon the kids picked out a lovely colorful collar with tinkling bell and I had a "My Name Is Earl" tag specially made just for him. I'm grateful for this identification addition because now our lovely evenings relaxing on the back porch won't be interrupted by plaintive meowing from inside the house.

May 14

All of those dirty diapers and late night pukefests were totally worth it. I am so grateful to be the mother of two wonderful kids. Happy Mother's Day!