Lazy Days, Lengthening Days: The Week In Thanks

This week's essay in thankfulness starts, as it easily could every week, with Dena.

I'm grateful that she's the kind of wife who re-arranges the living room furniture to give some new perspective, because I rarely would. She asks my opinion before doing it, even though her artistic vision is vastly superior to mine. If I ever disagreed, I think that she might even listen to me.

When she asks if I'll help lug the awkward heavy furniture up the stairs, she asks if I'd be okay with doing it "within the next couple hours" instead of "now," even though I'm just sitting there uselessly playing video games. (So naturally I help her now... maybe I should also be thankful for her brilliant psychological mind.)

She's the kind of person who rearranges her schedule so that she can have her hair done an hour away in Peoria. Why? Because when she lived much closer to Peoria, her cousin cut her hair. She's more loyal than Tonto, I tell you.

Hidden Bloggers notice that Ryan Short won his 200th basketball game this weekend. He could probably head coach a team of monkeys to 200 wins. He's the most brilliant guy in the room, and yet the most considerate as well. Including that he gives me about three times as much respect for my opinions as a coach than I'm worth. How do I end up surrounded by such loyal role models?

We are already a full month past the winter solstice. The sun's not setting until 5:00 now. Spring training begins in less than a month. Daylight savings time is less than two months away.

An especially haphazard project at work has been postponed. For the moment it looks as if we'll get our remaining 2012 projects done with good quality. Is it just a brief gap in the clouds of a rainy day? Who cares, live in the now whenever you can. And relatively speaking, things at work have been pretty bright. The experiment where I supervise new students has gotten off to a solid start. A good foundation considering that five more are coming on board by year end.

Did anyone catch the two dramatic football games this weekend? Dena and I did, in addition to snuggling on the couch for a good part of Saturday morning to watch a couple movies she'd grabbed, Moneyball and Courageous. So nice to have one of those lazy weekends. Which is probably why Hidden Bloggers also saw an uptick in posts over the weekend.

Our home is clean, comfortable, cozy, and paid for. It's a wonderful place to gaze out the window into frigid afternoon skies, while tucked warmly beneath a blanket on the couch (ok, a Snuggie).

Tonight I attended a kick-off meeting for Vacation Bible School, since I'll be serving as a skit guy again from June 18-21 at Calvary United Methodist Church. I could write another whole blog post about each of the ladies on this incredible leadership team. Organized, funny, caring, creative, flexible - and personal friends.

I'll die a happy man if life consists of a bunch of weeks like this one.