Thankful Thursday | a catch-up

I missed last week’s Thankful Thursday post because I’d just gotten back from our wedding trip, and I’d just taken Sonia to the ER.

So I have lots to say by now!

This week, I’m thankful:

that we got home from our trip just in time for Sonia’s asthma attack last week

That would have been much more difficult to deal with from afar, given that she’s a minor! 

that ambulances are free in my county

Our ambulances and paramedics are paid for with our taxes, and I am thankful for that. 

That’s not exactly free, of course, but you know what I mean. There’s no bill after an ambulance ride here, and I am thankful.

that we live near emergency help

An advantage of suburbia is that help:

a) is located nearby

and

b) can get here quickly.

If you’re too rural, help is far away. And if you live in a congested city area, even nearby help could take a while.

So, suburbia is a good place to be when you can’t breathe well.

for my new sister-in-law

She is such a good fit for my adventure-loving brother, and she is just a delightful person all-around.

(My dad says that if you don’t like her, there’s probably something wrong with you!)

I am so thankful to have her in our family.

for God’s faithfulness to my brother and his wife

When people get married in their 40s, there is a long, circuitous path leading up to the marriage, and I feel thankful that God brought them together.

We sang a song about God’s faithfulness during the ceremony, and I had to stop singing a few times because otherwise, I was going to burst into tears and ruin my makeup. Heh.

for my sister-in-law’s family

She comes from a family of Egyptian immigrants, and they were so fun to talk to. Much of her family was born in Egypt (and some in Gaza and Syria) and it was really interesting to hear their stories. 

So often, I take our American religious freedoms for granted, and talking to my sister-in-law’s family reminded me to be thankful!

(Her family left Egypt because it was not a safe place for people who converted to Christianity.)

for the way different cultures meld through marriage

During the dancing, as my brother and his wife were held overhead on chairs by the wedding-goers (not a typical American wedding experience for me!*), I watched and thought about how beautiful it was to see different people groups come together in a family.

*edit: several Jewish readers pointed out that American Jewish weddings also have this tradition. And I’m sure other groups in America do too. I just hadn’t experienced it before; apologies for the clumsy wording.

And I felt…I’m struggling to find the word…maybe honored to get to experience the way another culture celebrates a wedding. It was such contagious joy!

It was the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to!

I also thought about how beautiful it is that people groups from the opposite sides of the globe can share a faith in Jesus.

that every single one of my June posts is updated

Over the course of the past month, I have manually gone through every post I’ve ever published in June!

(Which is no small task because I have been blogging since 2008.)

Anyway.

I got all the June posts done, just in time for the month’s end.

And I plan to tackle all the July posts next, and so on and so on, which means in a year, I’ll be done.

This means I am only 1/12 done with this project, but hey, 1/12 is better than 0/12.

(I am doing this because new web accessibility standards require, among other things, that every photo on a site comes with a text description included in the code for people who use screen readers. I applaud this change and also: it is a LOT of work for a one-person operation like myself.)

that my posts have comment links now

I hired a great WordPress guy on Fiverr and he added comment links to all the posts. Yay!

So now when you visit the homepage, you can see a comment count for each post, and there’s a link that takes you straight to the comments.

for cool showers

It’s been hot here, though not as hot as in the Pacific Northwest. Still, the heat is enough to make me very thankful for a cool shower after exercise.

for cool (ish) mornings

Yesterday afternoon we had a heat index of 106° F, but at 6:00 am, the temperature outside was tolerable for walking.

So, I am thankful for the relative cool of the morning.

What are you thankful for this week? 

P.S. I know some of you are still experiencing comment issues; out of order comments, or duplicate comments. Most readers have been able to fix this by clearing their history/browser cache, or by trying a different browser. If you try that and the comment issues persist, can you email me a screenshot of what you see? That will help the support team try to figure this out.