"Thankfuls"

There's this little ritual we always do at the end of our "Society of Saints" youth nights, called "prayers and thankfuls." It's exactly what you think: everyone takes turns offering up their petitions and thanking God for something. Now personally, being a grammar nerd, this irritated me when I first moved here. What the heck are "thankfuls"? Oh, you mean, "things for which you are thankful"? (Yes, that's what I thought.) However, out of respect from the eternal traditions of SOS that existed for eons before me (coughcoughsixmonths), I've never changed the little phrase.

But all in all, it's a very good tradition. It may sound super cheesy, but really: doesn't being thankful help you to put things in perspective and just generally make you feel better about life?

So today, with full knowledge of its cheesiness, I present to you (and to myself, really): things for which I am grateful:

~Friends from college
~Caffeinated beverages
~Multiple daily Masses within a 20 min. drive
~The ability to be creative with food. Also, the fact that I am able to buy different foods which I can then combine creatively.
~My two legs! I really, really like walking around town.
~Spontaneous lunch/dinner/ice cream invitations from lovely people
~Fun music! And the ability to dance around my kitchen to it (again, refer to the fact that I have two legs)
~My apartment. It's nice to have a place to live! I like it. I'm even thankful that it gives me the chance to wage a war on the awful, terrible spiders on my back step.
~My car. Because it takes me places.
~My guardian angel! He/she/it takes ridiculously good care of me...
~My parish (I like them peoples a lots.)
~Twitter: because it gives me an outlet for my quirky thoughts. Same with text messaging, and this blog.
~Songs on the radio that make me laugh. Especially boy band songs. Especially when they're Christian boy band songs. (Also, I heard "Ice, Ice Baby" on the radio the other day, and I thought it was hilarious!)
~Sleep
~The opportunity to color with sidewalk chalk yesterday, with the little neighbor girls
~Colors in general. Have you ever thought about how cool colors are? Or conversely, how weird it would be if the world didn't have color?
~Ice cream
~Days off
~Days on (the job). Because I really, truly do have a good job.
~Having a future and a hope (see Jeremiah 29:11)
~Flowers. And my friends in college who taught me that there's nothing wrong with buying yourself flowers!
~Being a girl
~The ability to smile. And how much amazingly better I feel when I wield that ability.
~Jesus

Well, probably should stop with that last one - it's not going to get better than that!

Adios, peeps. Happy Monday afternoon!