Grateful Friday

I've been thinking all week about something I heard in Relief Society on Sunday.  A woman who by any measure has had a tough time lately, said something about how she is trying to be happy every day.  "I am happy in the joy of the gospel," she said.

Amazing.

Being happy is a choice.  That's true.  Sometimes it's a really hard choice but this helps:

It is not happiness that makes us grateful.  It't gratefulness that makes us happy.

David Steindl-Rast

Here are a few of the things I'm grateful for today:

1. This past week is the climatologically hottest week of the year around here (you know, according to a weather blog I read like it's my job).  And the week is about over!

2. I finished the last of my online courses this week!  And they were really pretty interesting.  (I'm excited to be a teacher.)

3. When Stephanie and I were talking earlier this week, I marveled, "Aren't older kids the best?"  She agreed.  I keep liking every stage of parenting more than the last.  This bodes well for my future. (As long as they continue to live within 30 minutes of me.  Is that asking a lot?)

4. I refilled my prescription for my eye medicine this week.  Modern medicine has saved me from going blind.  And also saved Adam from dying that one time.  So thank you, modern medicine.

5. I had the song Moon River in my head all week and Mark played Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo for me (because he's a believer in playing another song to replace the one stuck) and now I have that song in my head.  So while I don't necessarily appreciate any song playing over and over in my brain, I appreciate that Mark is something of a music doctor for me.

6. Speaking of Mark, he takes a walk with me nearly every morning.  Even when he doesn't particularly want to.

7. I've been trying (trying!) to translate a birth record from the 1880s which was written in Italian.  I'm grateful for Google Translate.  Technology is amazing.  I'm sitting at my little desk, looking at someone's handwriting and typing the words that mean nothing to me into Google Translate and English emerges!  Miracles!

I'm not great at reading the handwriting and Google Translate isn't perfect.  Also, I have realized the spelling of some words (like January) have changed slightly.  Still.  It's incredible to me that I'm able to get any of it.  And kind of exciting which might sound weird but this is for a man in my ward who I am helping with family history.  And family history research is fun.  Even if it is in Italian cursive from the 1880s.

8. Last night we went to IKEA and bought Emma some stuff for her kitchen in her new apartment this fall.  I love checking things off my to do list.  Check, check, check!