Health. Everyone in our immediate family, right now, is healthy. Even all four grandparents are healthy. After all my health issues recently, and the sudden loss of a close friend we suffered this year, I don’t take our current health for granted. Heck, even Serval seems to be doing a lot better!
Happiness. There are ups and downs to be sure, but no one is battling depression or intense anxiety right now. With a 15yo sophomore and and a 12yo who started middle school this year, I consider us very fortunate in the emotional well-being department.
Friendship. Both kids got to see friends this week. The 15yo has had a hard go of it, friendship wise, the past 18 months, but things seem to be evening out. The 12yo has kept, and even expanded, his friend group at the start of middle school. The husband goes out for dinner and drinks with people a couple times a month. My little friend group is still supporting each other, and a couple of us really need that support right now. No one feels alone. There were a lot of Thanksgivings when I felt like I had no friends living close to me, and I was so, so lonely. I am always grateful for friendship.
Financial security. We are very lucky to have secure, stable jobs. We’ve never made a lot of money, but we’ve made very consistent money and we were fortunate to have parents who could support us when we started out, so we’re not paying off crazy student debt. We are very financially fortunate, and I probably do take our financial security for granted, though I always try to be aware of it.
My family. Things are not perfect in our little family of four. The husband and I are really hoping to reconnect this weekend while the kids are at my parents’ house, because we need it. The 12yo is very much tweening, which can be rough for all of us and the 15yo has been managing some big emotions this year. But! We enjoy each other’s company (for the most part) and I love spending time with them. When I was fighting so hard to build a family, what we have is exactly what I envisioned, and who gets to say that? I am very grateful for our family of four.
We just found out that the family friends who usually come to Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house are sick so they won’t be able to make it. In the past their highschooler has made it hard for our 12yo to enjoy the evening, so I’m very relieved that we won’t have to navigate that dynamic today! Kind of a big win, honestly!
I hope everyone has a delightful Thanksgiving with whomever you celebrate with!
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your weekend without the kids, and I love reading your list of thankful things–these are all things to cherish but also easy to take for granted.
This is a great list. Very relatable. We are both in the same boat – no student loans. My parents and grandparents invested money since the beginning of time ( or the beginning of when that was available), which is a blessing that very few people our age have going for them. We pretend that safety net isn’t there and live our lives as mostly frugal people, but when something crops us – we don’t need to panic.
Curly hasn’t had a great high school experience. Some classes are like that- just not a great group, or kids who are super exclusive and care more about appearances and social climbing. We’re proud of Curly for staying true to herself and not jumping thru hoops to impress anyone, but it is hard to watch at times. I know she wish she had a bigger or more consistent friend group.
I have some dear friends, but things have shifted over the years and I do miss having a group to do things with. (Part of it is that Coach and I still have kids at home and the group we did things with were free to travel or go out a lot more than we could – we couldn’t keep up, plus when our kids got older a lot of parents we hung with sort of drifted . . . kids in different activities, etc.). I’ve found that the older I get the harder it is to make friends, so it stinks when the friends we did have shift or drift apart.
I thought the other family being sick was gonna be a bummer situation, glad that’s not the case. I hope you enjoyed your day. I’m grateful to have discovered your blog this NaBloPoMo.
These are the really important things- it’s good to remember these when all the little things go wrong. I hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving!
What a great list and I second all of this. Health is so important (we lost my MIL and my best friend this year and it really made me think about how lucky we are to be healthy!) and also friendships and financial security! It’s so easily taken for granted.
I am counting the ways I am lucky. Both kids families were together this year and it was lovely to see the university sophomore connecting with the high school freshman…. age difference is really starting to shrink, must say they have always done well together but there is 9increasingly more in common interests which is nice.