Thankful Thursday

Hi all! How is it almost the end of July already?! It's sneaky like that, lol. So. Things I'm thankful for this week...

1. Physical bookstores. On Monday, I found myself in 2nd & Charles. (For those who don't know, it's a fun store with new and used books and memorabilia.) I wandered around and went home happily with nine new-to-me books. Generally, I utilize my awesome library and have really been working on not buying books (and thereby limiting the amount of "stuff" I have). But. All of the books I bought Monday were either on clearance or discounted because they were used. (Most of them were only $1 each!!)

Anyhow, two of them I was actually specifically looking for (and was incredibly proud of myself for finding them in the less than organized "system" of 2nd & Charles). The rest found me. It was so much fun to just wander and let the books "speak" to me. I haven't been reading as much as usual this summer so hopefully this is the spark I need to get going again. :)

2. My gram. On Tuesday, my gram (my mom's mom) turned 101. Folks, I tell you, she's going to outlive us all. We didn't manage another big party like last year but I'm so thankful for her for bringing my mom into this world. I also have fond--eclectic--childhood memories of her...watching cartoons with the volume cranked up high, reading stacks of The Enquirer, teaching me to crochet, constantly taking in wild stray cats, loving her tiny black dog named Tiny, always having raspberry thumbprint oatmeal cookies, trying to get me to eat liver and onions with her, making her snapdragons "talk" to me, telling me stories from the Great Depression, and much more. If you stop and think about all that she's lived through, it's pretty amazing. Hoping she had a lovely birthday!

3. These ladies. Wednesday, I met up with five dear friends for drinks and dinner. We all met years ago when we were homeschooling our rag tag group of kiddos. None of us is still homeschooling (as of next month, officially) and it was fabulous to catch up...  

Unfortunately, I didn't remember to get a photo until Shawn had already left. :( But. Deanna had this picture that has Shawn, me, April and Deanna from Deanna's wedding reception earlier this month. We all did some catching up then, too. (April also homeschooled with us but hadn't been able to make it on Wednesday.) So pretend that the pictures are combined. :)

Thankful for these women and the fact that we remain friends even as our kids have grown up and gone their separate ways.

4. Selling Daichi. Earlier today, after more than a month of having it listed, we sold Daichi...our 2006 Nissan Xterra that we acquired last summer. It turned out to need more work than we were willing to pay for, but we managed to sell it to a mechanic who seemed to know just what to do. Whew. Looking forward to having one less vehicle to insure, even if it means more coordination will be needed. (Fortunately, we rarely need all the vehicles at once anyhow.)

And that's my list for now. I'll probably have another couple posts before the month is over...