Thanks!

This was such a crazy  Thanksgiving holiday.  I won't bore you with the details, just know the story involves starvation on a certain picky blonde's part, sleeping in my brand new ski jacket, hat and gloves, and coming home smelling strongly of bacon. 

Instead, I want to talk about being thankful.  Seriously, the last year of my life was almost the worst it could possibly get and I came about 10 seconds away from having to go into the looney bin, but I made it through.  Victory!  If I talked about all the things that have happened in my life, all the blessings through the rotten pain, I would cry.

You don't want to make me cry.  Trust me.

So, instead, I am going to talk about the silly things that I am thankful for.  I mean, I am genuinely thankful for these items, but not as much as the important people in my life and the way God has taken care of me.  My coping mechanism is humor, so humor you get!

1.  I am thankful for friends who will send me or pick me up food from Trader Joe's.  Trader Joe's, despite my deepest love and support, and many letters written to them, has refused to put a store within a reasonable driving distance from me.  I love you, Trader Joe's!  Stop snubbing us!  We need your unique and organic goodness just as much as everyone else!  So, until they finally decide that I am a genius and build a store closer to me, I am instead grateful to people who will buy me things like chocolate covered edamame or Meyer lemon thins.

2.  I am thankful for flat iron spray.  Without the stuff, my attempts at flat iron curls would, well, fall flat, for lack of a better term.

3.  I am thankful for the electric blanket.  Whoever created that baby was a genius.  I salute the inventor of the electric blanket from September to May.  Bravo, inventor!

4.  I am thankful for my missing appendix.  Because of its absence, I will never have to have another appendectomy.  This saves me a great amount of pain, time out of commission, and money.

5.  I am thankful that I get to work with a man.  In the education world, men are rare.  Without any testosterone present, the women work themselves into a frenzy and rip one another to shreds.  Even though I am female, sometimes I just need to hang out with the guys.  In my case, guy.  He's hilarious and he lets me use his restroom, which is much cleaner than the overly used ladies' room.

6.  I am thankful for bell peppers.  Without bell peppers, this certified veggie hater would be in big trouble.

7.  I am thankful that I have the ability to play the piano.  I don't play it well, and certainly don't want anyone to hear me play it, but it's a pretty cool feeling to be able to do it.  I enjoy it.

8.  I am thankful for Google Reader.  Thanks to Google Reader, I am able to keep up with lots and lots of blogs - and it even recommends new ones for me!

9.  I am thankful for the tankini swim suit with a skirt bottom.  Who knew that just a few more inches of fabric would make me strut around the pool belting out "Boom, chica wah wah!"  OK, not really.  But hey, the fact that I'm even walking around the pool at all is progress.

10.  I'm thankful that I have a job in which I can require my students to put on flower leis and dance to Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas" every day during the Christmas season.  Is it educational?  Welllllll......

What random things are you thankful for?