Thankful

I'm amazed at how thankful I am for the status quo in our lives. I look at what's going on around me, mainly the economy still trudging along, and it helps me be so grateful for my husband's employment, a roof over our heads, our health. I think when we're standing on the edge of a cliff really seeing the uncertainty of life we can either take a deep breath and try to look at the good we have or continually worry about falling off that cliff.

We just moved from a 2 bedroom townhouse/apartment into a 4 bedroom house with a large backyard. Square footage wise we only gained about 400 square feet but it is amazing the difference this place makes for my family of 5 going on 6. As soon as my middle boy is up from his nap, my two eldest are in the backyard until I call them into bathe so they can eat dinner. Yes, they get that dirty but they have so much fun. I didn't truly understand how cramped and hard it was to be in the apartment. It was a newer, energy efficient place in a beautiful neighborhood where I could run my air conditioning to keep the house at 78 and have an electric bill under $100. Now we're in an older, completely not energy efficient house where I don't even turn on the AC until it is 84 or so in the house knowing that by doing that I'll probably have an even higher electric bill, but we couldn't be happier.

My eldest started Kindergarten. In the end, we enrolled him in the local public school but so far I'm so happy with our decision. He is flourishing and doing really well. The school is high rated, his teacher has been teaching for 34 years and there's a ton of parent involvement. I don't think we could have asked for a better situation with the options we had.

I just am amazed at my contentment with life. I am hoping I can maintain a thankful attitude and realize all that God is doing for us. We truly are blessed to still have employment. Where we live the construction industry is awful and the unemployment rate is 15%. So while my husband brings home the bacon, I am looking forward to a Fall of baking, finding new, healthy and fresh recipes to make and getting ready for baby #4. As we settle into our new place and into our new routines I can't help but smile on how good life is.