Last day of Thanksgiving Nov 2013...Unexpected Surprises

Today is the last day of the 30 days of Thanksgiving.  Some of you are ready for this to be over as in "Will Deb please find something new to talk about??"  Others are a bit sad to see the 30 days of giving thanks end until next year.  I tend to land in that bit sad column.  I like to hear people being thankful.  I like attitudes of gratitude and the intentional expression of that thanks.  It sure beats stories of people hurting each other on Black Friday or ultra consumerism that is far too prevalent in our news feeds.

It has been a good exercise for me - the discipline of writing, the time to think about what I am most thankful for in this life.  Those are practices that are good all year round.

Well, today, the last day of this 30 days, I want to say that I am thankful for unexpected surprises.  Yes, I am aware that is a redundant phrase.  Thank you for that English tutor session.  I feel much smarter now. 

So I will revise that to just I am thankful for surprises.  Some folks hate surprises, even the good kind.  But not me!  I love a good surprise, especially the good ones or the ones that make me laugh.

Like this one.

 

Can you see it?  Not the little line of fuzz, but a bit to the right of that fuzz.  Here, let me try it this way.

 

Do you know what that is?  That blue dot?  It's not an Excel blue dot of circular reference.  It's a blue dot of confetti. On our living room rug.

 

And that's not a blue dot of confetti because we had a wild party last night.  Nope, that is a blue dot of confetti that is much older than last night.  It's from September of 2012.  September 30th of last year to be exact.  When we had S&K's gender reveal party to find out that J-man was a boy.  And it's not that we haven't run a vacuum between then and now (although that piece of fuzz to the left of the blue dot might make you wonder as well).  No, trust me.  G is our resident meister of the vacuum, so this spot of the rug has been vacuumed many times since Sept. 30, 2012.  As well as inspected.  By G.  Who is also our resident attention to detail meister. 

 

So therefore, he would have also been the one to see this dot of confetti.  Yesterday.  He is the only one around here who ever has found the dots of confetti.  Since B is legally blind, things like this are not on her radar, and I like details about some things, but not cleaning confetti.  Nope, gotta leave that to G.  And trust me.  He "loves" confetti.  Can't wait to include it in our next big party.  He "loves" it so much that my friend, PK, has suggested that I need to hide it in his suitcase every now and then...

 

Get how much he "loves" it?  So I had to laugh when he asked me yesterday morning, "Guess what I just found?" 

 

Huh?

 

"Something that is over a year old," he says.

 

"And it doesn't smell?" I ask.

 

He points to the rug.  He's smiling, but I don't see it. 

 

Imagine that.

 

Until I get up close.  And I laugh from the sheer surprise and humor of it, and take a pic.  Cause what else is there to do but take a pic, right?

 

We had one other surprise yesterday.  We'd been out and about doing some shopping but nothing like Black Friday craziness.  We bought a Christmas tree stand, and were ending the day at the Shining Light Tree Lot where they sell trees each year to raise money for the Delta Gamma Center for Children with Visual Impairments, the folks who gave B vision therapy 21 years go.  We found a very nice tree (more on that tomorrow) and were helped by a man who has worked the lot as a volunteer since 1984 - almost 30 years.  How cool is that?  Gotta love that sort of dedication.

 

Well, we went inside the trailer and my eyes landed on this almost immediately.





Can you tell who that is?  This is me and B, circa 1993, taken at the Delta Gamma center all those years ago.  This pic has been used by them in a flyer and displayed ever since.  I was so surprised to see it still in use.

I also saw this.

 

That is also our little B, in a therapy session, learning about pouring liquids.  Can you believe it?  Of all the children they have helped through the years, we saw two pics on the trailer walls of our little one.  Now that's the sort of surprise that just makes you feel warm and wonderful and special inside and yet somewhat private all at the same time...because B is simply a child here - a child with needs like any other child - and there's a place who helped her then and keeps helping others today. 

 

"That's cool" as my son, S, said.

 

And B had to laugh when I showed them to her.  Especially as much as she hates to have her pic taken now, there's just a certain irony about it.

 

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for stopping by.  Thanks for sharing your thankfulness with me via FB posts this month.  Thanks for the surprises I've read in that time.  Good stuff.

 

Yep, I'm thankful to be alive and healthy and able to share stuff with folks.  Talk to ya tomorrow!