Grateful finally

In all the muss and tumble of this last several months, I have been reminded again and again to be grateful. Because I don't get everything I want all the time. But I get a lot a lot of great stuff.

To wit:

I am consistently surrounded by incredible people. My 10 years at BYU (we'll be celebrating our tin or aluminum anniversary in September--bonfire, anyone?) and beyond (Manna, Jenn and Kristin, sireli hay, I'm looking at you) have been wonderful for collecting really topnotch friends. Really topnotch friends who, out-of-the-blue just-in-the-nick-of-time, reappear with just the words (or handmade prints or pictures of their babies or photocollages or late-night chats) I need. This growing collection is one of my favorite things about getting older.

My family is amazing. Brilliant and funny and hardworking and creative. Unimaginably patient and forgiving and understanding. I'm not sure what I did to get so lucky, but I'm honored to be associated with the lot of them.

I'm learning the value of a good healthy fight. Not so much those cruel ones where you're trying to prove that you're right (if our words were swords we'd be dead) or whatever (though even those I think are something) but of really fighting it out. Caring enough to argue. Being willing to cry in front of someone. I feel like this is the best thing I've ever learned to do.

Heavenly Father is really patient and nice. (On a related note this project is taking off and I wonder sometimes if it might not be/become one of the most important things I'm involved in ever.) This might turn into a bigger post, but I'm coming to see more clearly that waaay more people than look it are questioning big questions of God and are ultimately being disappointed and feeling abandoned. This is hard stuff, any way you look at it and any way you eventually reconcile yourself with it. I like my relationship with God for the most part, I'm so grateful that I get to see him there, but I'm also really grateful for the people in my life who've chosen other paths. I'm grateful for their strength and their perspective.

My students, almost without exception (this semester without exception), are smart and interesting and involved. I haven't read their first papers yet so maybe I've been mislead, but classtime is interesting and they're so nice to each other. My being their teacher notwithstanding I feel so lucky to be a part of this supportive little (tiny. I have 10 students this semester) community.

The world is sort of magic. Spring is coming (it starts in our hearts!). I know there'll be another flurry or two before it's official, I know that March is a terrible awful abstract idea personified, but I smelled mud and grass! Winter will be over! Also: carrot soup. Also: lemon-garlic broccolli. Also: snowshoeing in the canyon.

My body is fabulous. (Don't worry, no more details about my menstrual cycle.) I ran something like 9 miles last week, next week I'll do more. I don't get sick (knock on wood) or tired, much. I am, right now, running on like 3.5 hours of sleep. Which, I think, I'll remedy.right.now.

ke