Happy Things

From the sublime to the ridiculous, concluding with some gems from Thanksgiving services here at Fairwood yesterday and this evening . . .

• Great camaraderie with my church family while cleaning up my family's yard as a surprise for my parents
• Setting my own schedule
• Getting my room cleaned
• Reconnecting with old friends
• Reading the end of Joshua next to the NH state house
• Learning the sentence that immediately follows John Stark's famous statement "Live free or die": "Death is not the worst of evils."
• Driving to work into the sunrise
• One Phoenix Academy (PA) resident another: "Good morning, C!"
  C: "No."
• "So you were born in a retirement home?" --Craig to Josh, after Josh told us that the hospital he had been born in had later been turned into a retirement home
• A PA resident being outraged that Obama was building a monument to himself in front of the White House. Closer inspection of the newspaper article revealed a picture of Obama's inauguration stand in front of the White House with a headline reading something like "Obama Election Monumental" underneath
• Thinking that Chad told me that "wedding drops" would help my eyes. (Um, I fail to see how that would help! :-))
• Bobby to himself on the way from one of the upper floors of Shiloh to the basement at night, after telling ghost stories with his second year guy classmates: "This is God's house . . . no evil spirits here."
• All-church Sabbath meeting
• "In His will is our peace." --June S., quoted by Donna H.
• "You're never closer to heaven than when you have to muck out the stalls." --Donna H.
• "I'm never lonely or bored . . . . Sometimes I wish I had been!" --Katie A.
• Brandon A. pointing out that we can be thankful that we didn't have money to buy fuel oil when it was over $4 a gallon, because now we can buy it for $2.50 a gallon
• "It's a compliment from God to be asked to trust Him for such things and to see Him provide." --Brandon A.
• The amazingly beautiful stars. I regularly see them, catch my breath, and say, "That's gorgeous, God; thank You."
• "I used to pray, 'God, protect me on my way to work.' He did protect me, so now I pray, 'God, please protect me and my car.'" --Diane R., thanking God for protecting her when she totaled her car on the ice last winter
• "I am, as Craig pointed out, following in my little brother's footsteps." --Chad, thanking God for a chance to volunteer assistant coach high school basketball this year
• "I'm thankful for good books and, on occasion, the time to read them." --Chad
• "I'm thankful that I was able to pick off some squirrels who were eating my birdseed . . . . paintballs kept missing, so I went to more powerful ammunition." --Dan M.
• Craig continuing to insist that his severe sinus infection was pancreatic ebola
• "I feel like I have an advantage over the rest of the creative world because God gives me ideas!" --Craig
• Fairwood people going to see Curt Schilling and John McCain, probably in that order
• "I'm thankful that God invented skates." --Aaron S.