30 Days of Gratitude: Sleep, Family, New Home, Colleagues, Cat

Because I want to get back into the habit of blogging, and because I've been meaning to do this for a few years now, I will be doing 30 consecutive days of blog posts focusing on 30 different things I am grateful for.  Who says Thanksgiving is only one day a year?

Yikes--I'm several days out of date on my gratitude posts!  But I'm really excited about today's, because I can FINALLY explain the BIGGEST reason I've been so bad about blogging this fall.  In mid-August, we somewhat abruptly learned that we'd have to move out of our apartment.  We looked at other rentals but also decided to look at some houses, since our plan had always been to rent for a few years and then buy a home.  And before we knew it, we'd fallen in love and signed a contract on a house!  That was early September...and since then we've been packing and making arrangements and waiting and waiting and waiting to move!  I was too nervous to say anything online until everything was really, truly official, but we closed on Friday and moved in yesterday, so I guess it's really ours now.

So, working backward through the week, here is what I've been grateful for each day since I last posted:

Sleep: Mr. S and I stayed up until 4am Friday night/Saturday morning getting the apartment all the way packed up, then woke up at 6 to finish stuff up before the movers came.  My in-laws recently got a new bed, so they gave us the one that had been in their guestroom, and between the new bed and the exhaustion, I don't think I've ever had a better night's sleep than I did last night.

Family: My in-laws were with us all day yesterday, helping clean and move and organize, and supplying us and the movers with food.  My mom and step-dad are coming to visit next weekend, and my mom is planning on bringing me her snowblower.  Our families are looking out for us big-time and I'm so glad we have them.

New House: I just love it so much, and I keep finding little things that make me love it more.  The kitchen is pretty much perfect, one of the bedrooms has built-in bookshelves, and in our bedroom, the overhead light has a remote control--genius for reading in bed!

Colleagues: The people I work with, at both schools, are such interesting, dedicated educators that I would love working with them even if they weren't also just all-around awesome human beings.  They've patiently talked house stuff with me for the last two months and one of them even brought me a container of homemade tomato soup on Friday!

Our kitty: Willow (who has been a champ about this whole move, by the way) is such a sweet girl and really helps both me and Mr. S manage our stress--important during this crazy moving period!