Giving thanks for the little things

This is a photo of my mailbox. Why, you might ask, is this photo of a shiny new mailbox illustrating my Thanksgiving weekend blog post?

There’s actually a lot in this photo to be thankful for, despite the annoying reason I have a new mailbox. During last week’s snow storm, something happened to knock my old mailbox over. Since several plants near it were also uprooted, I suspect a driver swerved, knocked it over…and then just kept driving. When I got home Thursday night, I thought my driveway looked different. Then I saw the mess and realized why.

Anyway, the reasons to be thankful:

Our postal carrier kept delivering the mail anyway. Completely uninterrupted service! I never had to go to the post office, even though I don’t mind our post office (as a small business owner, I am there a lot. They give my 3-year-old lollipops!)

My husband took ownership of this project. Over the weekend, he selected the new mailbox frame and box, and the numbers (not pictured in this shot).

My husband actually installed the mailbox himself. He is surprisingly handy! This involved digging a hole, pouring cement and placing the frame, and then (48 hours later) installing the box on the post. All I had to do was shine the flashlight as he was doing this last night. Which leads me to the final point…

Our kids are old enough to be in the house, unsupervised, while we do a project like this. Ok, the 3-year-old was in bed. But even he can be trusted to watch a show or a video on YouTube while we go outside for a few minutes. This has not been the case for much of the last 11 years! It’s kind of liberating!

What little things are you grateful for these days?

7 thoughts on “Giving thanks for the little things

  1. Congratulations on the milestone of being able to leave the house, if only for a few minutes without too much worry about what is happening inside. Your comment brought back that great feeling of freedom!! Enjoy, it will only grow.

  2. I’m grateful for the fact that I got woken up by the alarm clock instead of the baby monitor this morning! Six months in, kiddo is getting better and better at sleeping through the night.

  3. I’m grateful that two of our offspring and their families could be together for a Thanksgiving dinner–even if we couldn’t be there. And that they called and sent a photo of their smiling faces!

  4. You can also be grateful the ground wasn’t frozen so it could be replaced. A few years back a plow took out our mailbox… we didn’t even realize the only thing holding it up was the snowbank until the bank melted on spring day and we came home to a broken mailbox on the ground.

  5. 3 really is the magic number/year! I was late to parenthood, but in my late 20s and 30s, I noticed that my friends with children sort of came back to life when their youngest child was 3. I was glad to discover this pattern fairly early on, so that I didn’t take it personally when my friends disappeared into the haze of early parenthood. (It helped me when I had my own, too).

  6. I’m so envious of the ability to do a project like that with kids around! I had that for a few years (4.5 year gap between #2 and #3) but with a 4mo and a 2yo now our hands are full, all the time. Of course I’ll miss how cute* they are when they are bigger.

    *Note: I can say this because 4mo is a pretty good sleeper. I don’t miss this age with my oldest (now 9) at all – working a demanding consulting job with a baby who wakes up every 2-3 hours until well past her first birthday is something I can truly say I’m glad to have behind me, contrary to how everyone told me I’d feel!

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