Another "Faithful Friday"

How quickly time does fly. And in a week's time -since my last "Faithful Friday" post, how many more things have come my way, happened, for which I am thankful. Some things, I'm only sort of thankful for today as they have come to me as kind of a back-handed complement type thing if you know what I mean. But, the fact I am still breathing, still walking too -well, being thankful isn't just about every little good thing that happens to us, is it?

Two weeks ago this evening, I was fretting over what was wrong with my van, how I would be able to keep Maya from getting worked up, upset, in a meltdown perhaps, and also, where we would wait, sleep, etc., and how we would get back home. In the course of an hour's time, after I had pulled over when the van started to run poorly, most of those concerns were fixed -sort of -at least we were at Mandy's best friend's house, had a place to spend that night, some great company and a beautiful home, where we could safely sleep and wait then for Mandy and Bill to show up Saturday afternoon to bring us -and the van (with the mucked up transmission) back home. A stressful time for sure, but one in which, as my cousin reminded me, I had some pretty darned good karma going on for me and yep, sure am thankful for ALL of that.

Earlier this week, I got a notice from my health insurance carrier that one of the tests I had done about two months ago, and which they were denying coverage because they said I had already had my "limit" of one of those "routine" tests this year, will be corrected to reflect that the second test was not "routine" but rather needed to find out some little glitches in my system. So now, eventually -figuring maybe they work as slow as the government does about making corrections -they will pay the extra costs involved. Please do and yes I am thankful that I have the insurance and that they say they will be nice and I won't have to pay the extra fees. Anytime that I get a break on not having to shell out money -you better believe I am thankful.

This week, Maya has attended Bible School -run by the Sunday School teachers at our church -and she has not just enjoyed attending but we can see so many of the little things she has learned too. Wednesday evening, while we were eating supper, she began to sing -not an unusual event for her to sing one of the many little songs she knows -but this time, we realized she was singing something neither Mandy or I had ever heard before. We still haven't figured out all the words or the melody as yet, but most of what she sings of this song are repeated "Alleluia" over and over. It was when we finally realized that was the word she was singing that we knew this was a new number and one she was learning in Bible School! WOW! How wonderful it was to realize she was memorizing this song and enjoying singing it too. Mandy spoke to our next door neighbor today, who is the Director of the Children's Choir at church and when she starts up practices again in the fall (weekly event) for the Children's Choir, Mandy is going to enroll Maya in that program. We both think it will do her good -put her in and around several other children ranging in age from five up to about 14-15 years old. It will really aid her social skills plus, will be a good outlet for her as she does very much love to sing -and she can carry a tune too! Yep, for sure, for that I am quite thankful.

I'm thankful too that in the past week I was able to find, write and have accepted, some posts that fall in the paid posting category. One of the four groups I am registered with often the submission procedure is very quirky, and I frequently have problems trying to do a post for them but this week, thanks to some other people who are paid posters and who responded to questions on their forum which explained some ways I could utilize to get my posts submitted and accepted easier, I made a couple extra bucks -always a nice thing with respect to whether or not the paid posting can be considered successful for me ya know! And I really appreciate the fact that so many of my blogger friends have read these posts and made comments on them too! That really goes a very long way for me when I get responses like that and who knows, maybe that will sit well with the powers that be with those companies too. I dunno there if they pay any attention to that or not, but I do -and yes, thank you, thank you, to all of you who did comment on these topics.

One thing about the paid posting stuff, I try, as much as possible, to make those posts pertain to something, anything, within my life, memories, circumstances, etc., so they are not then just a little way to advertise products but hopefully, a bit more meaningful. As well as creating just a tiny bit of extra finances to a very tight budget!

Today, I did something I haven't done in probably at least six years. Don't laugh now but considering how much I hate doing this particular thing too, for me it is quite an accomplishment - I got the lawn mower to start and managed to cut roughly about a quarter of the lawn around this house! Normally, I don't worry about that task as my son-in-law usually takes care of cutting the grass but he's been really busy the past couple of weeks, working almost day and night, as it where, and the grass needed to have someone at least try to get cracking on it. The reason I haven't done any lawn mowing in so many years all goes back to five years ago this summer when my back went out after my first surgery and after that, it seemed I was continually in a state -physically -that even trying to use the lawn mower was something I couldn't handle. I took it very slowly today since my system isn't used to that much hard physical stuff now and yes, when I shut the mower down, my legs and back were very tired and I was really hot and sweaty too -for sure. But I came in and laid down, rested my back and legs for a good while this afternoon so that now, there is a little bit of stiffness and some added aching there but nothing drastic. So that little bit of work/exercise I think, even though I am not a fan in the least of running a lawn mower under even the best of circumstances, it was all a good thing! I'm just thankful I didn't go into cardiac arrest with all the "new" physical stuff stuff being introduced to my old system, ya know!

One thing today though that I am still working on trying to find something about this to be thankful for concerns problems I have been having here all day with Google Reader!

This morning when I got up, everything was working fine and dandy. Then my antivirus program went through its paces and I had to restart the computer for the changes made there to take effect, after which my Google reader has not been functioning properly. Bummer! It doesn't reflect but only maybe a fourth of all the blogs I subscribe to and the scroll bar that is supposed to be between my subscription list and the blogs, is missing too! Frustrating -yes, it is. I reported in to Google under the header "Something is broken" and I see several others have been having the same issues today too -so I guess the fact I am not alone in this is something for which I can be thankful. With more than me having problems, I am thinking that does perhaps increase the odds that Google will do something to get things fixed sometime in the near future!

Now, something I would really be ultra thankful for though -about Google Reader, well Google in general really -would be if they would write things about how to do this or that task with their system and use simple, plain English! That's an issue for me in that when they post directions who to use some new function or widget, they write it in what I refer to as "Computerese" and because those who work on these things may know and understand exactly what they are saying, they don't always -really, usually -take into consideration that a good many of us trying to blog, trying to utilize the various things Google does offer to us also don't have very much of a clue as to the inner workings of things. I think I can still learn more about my computer, about blogging, about using Reader, other things, but boy, I really wish they would try to simplify the way they write instructions, provide information to those of us who are more than a little bit dense in this area!

Now, I need to fix something for supper -and though I'm not totally thankful that I have to cook, I am thankful that I can and also, that we have cupboards, refrigerator and freezer, all filled to the brim -some to the point of almost overflowing -and yes, I am so thankful for that! Aren't you too when you look around your kitchen, see the many things that are sitting there waiting to be opened, cooked, baked, whatever -and know you (and my family and I) sure aren't going to starve anytime soon?

However, I am going to have to remember some of the hints and suggestions my blogger friends passed along to me in an effort to curb my appetite, maybe manage to shave a pound or two or fifty off the old body here as I try to fix our evening meal tonight.

Go forth, cook, eat, enjoy and have a great weekend -with lots and lots of things which we can all give thanks for having such abundance in our lives!