The fifth seven days.

Continuing on with the #100daysofhappy theme, here are this week's thankful moments/gifts/happy things.

June 15: Lots of things made me happy today! I got some gifts in the form of food and nice-smelling things: my mom brought Brandon and I lunch because we were at church when the rest of the family went out for Father's Day. And she delivered some yummy smelling stuff from the Body Shop that my cousin got for me. I was also really happy that I got to see my friend Denise M. (or "other Denise" as I refer to her) in church this morning! I work in the nursery on the third Sunday of every month, and Denise is usually in there with me. I hadn't seen her since February- in March I was in Tanzania, April was Easter and I worked an earlier service, and she was absent last month! So I finally got to talk to her about my trip and show her a few pictures on my iPad before some more of the babies started crying and we had to get them out of their bouncy seats. Sharing with her made me really happy- I'm glad that I got to see her again after several months!

June 16: One of my pet rats, Glitter, has been really sick for a long time. We don't know if she had a bunch of strokes or what, but we had basically been expecting her to die from last spring until....about a month ago. Seriously. She hasn't eaten her real food in over a year- when she's doing ok she can eat things like bread, when she's not doing ok she eats baby food and baby cereal. Lately it had been a lot of baby cereal. She also had some tooth issues from going so long without grinding her teeth down on the pellets she normally eats. Tonight I am spending some time upstairs working on the computer as I eat my dinner (frozen french fries! I'm an adult, don't judge me.) Glitter was super excited to see me (the rat cage is right next to the computer desk) and just to see what she'd do with it, I gave her a little french fry. She's been able to eat almost all of it! Even with messed up balance and wonky teeth and all the other problems she has. I'm so happy she has been able to act more like her old self this past week or so. I'm really impressed with how well she is doing! Healthy pets not on the verge of death makes me very happy. : )

June 17: I got to have dinner with my moms tonight! My mother in law Denise has been sitting out of our Bible study group this year because she was involved in a discipleship training course at our church. She is ready to come back and join our group again- but tonight we didn't have Bible study! So my mom and I met her for dinner instead. We had a nice time catching up and eating some yummy food (I am generally happy whenever I can get my hands on a Shirley Temple) and afterwards, my mom and I made a run to nearby Walmart and bought some things for the baggies we are going to be sending to some of our kids later this year! They didn't have much in the way of school supplies yet, but I found some colorful ink pens, soccer pencils for Victor and rainbow pencils for Mary! And we got ice cream, too. It was a very nice evening! : )

June 18: Today was a mess. Work was especially messy! It was hot and gross because the air conditioner isn't working right, and we were super busy. I got worn out pretty quickly, and I wasn't the only one! Our Friends of the Library group is really awesome- several months ago they bought us a fancy pants coffee machine (one of those Keurig thingies.) I have some ethical issues with those machines because the individual coffee cups are extremely expensive when compared to just buying a bag of coffee (which I don't do anyway) and none of the little individual cups are recyclable. However, this evening I desperately needed some energy, and I was so thankful for that machine and the "cafe mocha" coffee cups that someone brought in to share!

June 19: Brandon was off work today, and I got off pretty early, so we had time to watch a few movies together this afternoon. It was nice to take a break and just sit down for a while after standing all day at work! And it's always a plus when the movie we watch is actually enjoyable- tonight we watched "Spirited Away", which is a really nice animated feature from Studio Ghibli (I really like Hayao Miyazaki's movies!) This was a vast improvement over some of the stuff we've watched lately, like "Conan the Barbarian!"

June 20: I'm happy that I get to work with friends. I don't think there was very  much that I would call "enjoyable" about today- I had to get up early again to drive my husband to work, we had a very busy and exhausting day at work (during which I got a very bad stomachache and had to take a nausea pill, which made me very sleepy) and then there was a torrential downpour once I got to my car- I couldn't even see the road sometimes on my short drive home. But the day would have been a lot more difficult if I worked with people I didn't like. I'm thankful for my friends from work, who make difficult days more bearable!

June 21: Today I'm happy that I live so close to my parents. When money is really tight and we are running low on things like, well, food, I can go over to my parents' house and pick up some necessities. That's what I did today. My mom made up a few bags for me, which included Big Red (yay!) and a box of Kleenex (we are out, and we have allergies. And one of us is struggling to cope with stress and might be doing a little more crying than usual.) It was nice to have something for dinner that wasn't sandwiches or hot dogs (we did not eat the Kleenex.) I'm happy that my mom takes care of me, even though I don't live in her house anymore.