Thankful Thursday

Today's list is pretty random. :) Things I'm particularly thankful for this week...

1. Loose leaf tea. Just before New Year's, I purged and tidied our pantry area (yay! love that feeling of getting rid of things and reorganizing, truly). In the process, I discovered I have rather a lot of tea. I purged some and reorganized all the tea bags to make them more accessible. Then I gathered all the containers of loose leaf tea (mostly from our lovely local tea house, Happy Lucky's). And lately I've been working my way through the loose leaf teas...enjoying reacquainting myself with them (and simultaneously working to use things up before buying anything new...which also feels good). 

2. New Year's cards. Thanks to our trip to Curacao, I opted to wait until after that to order holiday cards this year. They weren't anything overly exciting (nor was the recap letter I wrote to go with them, lol) but I'm always thankful for holiday cards. I appreciate having the annual recap and documentation...both for ourselves and seeing them from friends and family. Here's how the card turned out:

(Sorry the quality isn't great...it's just a picture of one of the cards.) I've added ours to my office door, alongside the other cards we received this year. I like leaving them up all year and seeing all the smiling faces of friends and family and knowing we were thought of. 

3. Local business cooperation. Over the weekend, I climbed for the first time at Whetstone climbing gym here in Fort Collins. I always climb at Ascent because that's where my membership is. But Ascent was hosting a youth competition so their bouldering was closed for the week. Because Fort Collins businesses are awesome and supportive, even though they're direct competitors, Ascent and Whetstone made arrangements to allow any Ascent members to climb free at Whetstone last week. I so appreciate that spirit of cooperation and enjoyed my experience at Whetstone! (For what it's worth, I see this cooperation among other businesses here often...advertising for each other, supporting each other, working together. Love it.)

4. Streaming services. I know it dates me but I have fond memories of going to the video store as a kid and getting to pick out a VHS or two. It was an event. :) As much fun as that was, though, I'm so appreciative for streaming services and the convenience of getting to pick movies to watch without needing to leave home. It makes family movie night much easier. :) (We watched Rocky this week. It was the first time any of us had seen it, and we enjoyed getting to see the classic and learning what people have been talking about.)

5. Having a garage. Every time it snows, I'm thankful for having a garage. I think our sidewalk is annoyingly long, lol, but am grateful that I can shovel the driveway and sidewalk and not have to worry about also clearing snow off my car. (To be fair, I've still cleared snow off of the car Asher drives since it's parked along the street, but I didn't personally have to sit in it while it warmed up, lol.)

6. Micah's meds. So thankful for Micah's medication. Since Christmas, he's had a couple of flare ups due to having a cold (which messes with his immune system and causes the autoimmune response that brings on the arthritis or something like that) and then being extra cold (because he took advantage of yesterday's snow day to go sledding with friends). While the flare ups suck, they're good reminders of how much worse things would be without the medication. 

Relatedly, thankful for the co-pay card that we get to help cover the cost of said medication. I spent a good chunk of time on the phone today renewing that co-pay card for the calendar year so that I can refill his medication. Without the co-pay card from the medication manufacturer itself, even with pretty good insurance, a month's supply would be almost $3000. Ugh.

Okay, need to get some stuff done. :) What are you thankful for this week?