{"id":5454,"date":"2025-12-01T17:15:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T23:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/?p=5454"},"modified":"2025-11-30T20:20:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:20:42","slug":"30-things-im-grateful-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/?p=5454","title":{"rendered":"30 Things I&#8217;m Grateful For"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Especially in the world we live in right now it&#8217;s so important that we take a moment to sit back and reflect on all the blessings we have in our lives.\u00a0 There is so much good right in front of us that we take for granted.<\/p>\n<p>To that end, a very popular trend on social media is to post something you are grateful for every day in November. I didn&#8217;t do that for a several reasons, so I&#8217;m doing it all in one fell swoop today.<\/p>\n<p>Note- these are in the order they come to mind, so after the first few there is no rhyme or reason to the order.<\/p>\n<p>#1 Pat.\u00a0 My husband is my rock, my safe place, my biggest cheerleader.\u00a0 He has faith in me when I have none in myself.\u00a0 He has truly seen me at my worst and loves me anyway.\u00a0 He loves me for who I am and doesn&#8217;t try to control me.<\/p>\n<p>#2 My cats.\u00a0 Cats in general are awesome of course.\u00a0 But I have 3 very special fuzzbutts who share my home and I could not imagine life without them.\u00a0 Boots is my special bonded girl.\u00a0 Lilly is my fierce mama bear and Oreo is our jokester and clown.\u00a0 Dogs can be OK, but dogs don&#8217;t purr.<\/p>\n<p>#3 My home.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had people ask me where I want to move when I retire.\u00a0 My answer?\u00a0 The only places I plan to move are the nursing home or the cemetery. I have everything I need right here so why would I go anywhere else?<\/p>\n<p>#4 My niece Ava.\u00a0 She is the closest thing I will have to a daughter and I love her with all my heart.\u00a0 She is smart and talented and kind and funny and amazing.<\/p>\n<p>#5 My nephew Luke.\u00a0 I love him to bits.\u00a0 He&#8217;s the one who made me an aunt and it&#8217;s been amazing watching him grow up into the young man he is today.<\/p>\n<p>#6 My sister Pam.\u00a0 We are wildly different people.\u00a0 We butt heads from time to time.\u00a0 If we weren&#8217;t sisters we would not be friends because we have very little in common outside of shared DNA.\u00a0 But I love her so much and I love that she has some amazing kids.<\/p>\n<p>#7 My parents.\u00a0 Am I the black sheep and butt heads with them frequently?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Do they understand me?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 But the older I get the more I appreciate them.\u00a0 I know how fortunate I am that they are both still with us and in good health.<\/p>\n<p>#8 My job.\u00a0 I work for a stable, growing company that&#8217;s been very good to me for almost 18 years and counting.\u00a0 I work with great people too!<\/p>\n<p>#9 Community bands.\u00a0 I currently play clarinet with 2 local groups- the North Iowa Concert Band and the Hampton Municipal band.\u00a0 I enjoy these groups so much and I&#8217;ve so lucky to have these opportunities to play music.<\/p>\n<p>#10 Football.\u00a0 I love football.\u00a0 The NFL has its flaws but at the end of the day I love the excitement, the drama, the upsets- everything except the Cowboys.\u00a0 I hate the Cowboys.\u00a0 And the Patriots.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n<p>#11 Friends.\u00a0 Whether new or old, I have solid friends who have my back and support me unconditionally.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t tell them often enough how much they mean to me.\u00a0 I need to do a better job with that.<\/p>\n<p>#12 YouTube.\u00a0 I love series like Good Mythical Morning and If the NFL was Scripted.\u00a0 I enjoy tons of football content, comic content, and informational content.\u00a0 \u00a0Like most things in life it has some flaws, but it&#8217;s been so useful\/ helpful for me.\u00a0 I really discovered its usefulness during COVID and I&#8217;m so glad I did.<\/p>\n<p>#13 Anti depressants.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think I would be alive today without them.<\/p>\n<p>#14 ULTA.\u00a0 \u00a0I&#8217;ve had so many bonding moments with my niece Ava there, and I&#8217;ve learned a lot about skin care and make up there.<\/p>\n<p>#15 The internet.\u00a0 \u00a0 Yes it&#8217;s caused a lot of harm, but it&#8217;s allowed me to connect with people I never would have otherwise, and stay in touch with people many miles away from me.\u00a0 It allows me to find pants that come all the way to my feet and clothes that I feel good in.\u00a0 And have a blog!<\/p>\n<p>#16 Libraries.\u00a0 My quest to have less screens in my life has rekindled my love of reading and libraries.\u00a0 So much so that I am now on the library board in my town.<\/p>\n<p>#17 (Most of ) the rest of my family.\u00a0 I just spent 2 days with them and for the most part we are good people and we do our best for each other.<\/p>\n<p>#18 My church.\u00a0 I have a lovely faith family at my local church.\u00a0 And I love the United Methodist Church&#8217;s emphasis on putting faith into action.<\/p>\n<p>#19 The Great British Baking Show and all its spin offs.\u00a0 It is such a wholesome, sweet show and it&#8217;s just the perfect way to forget about all the world&#8217;s problems for a while.<\/p>\n<p>#20 Bon Jovi.\u00a0 I have been a fan for 40 years.\u00a0 And of course Jon Bon Jovi is the hottest man alive.<\/p>\n<p>#21 Duluth MN.\u00a0 My happy place.\u00a0 I have amazing memories of childhood vacations and now a whole new set of memories of great trips as an adult.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t explain why but being there just makes me happy.<\/p>\n<p>#22 Dancing with the Stars.\u00a0 Is it cheesy?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Do they really push the definition of the word &#8220;Star&#8221;?\u00a0 Also yes.\u00a0 Do I obsess about it every season?\u00a0 Also also yes.<\/p>\n<p>#23 Pizza.\u00a0 Even when it&#8217;s bad it&#8217;s still pretty good.\u00a0 How many other foods can you say that about?<\/p>\n<p>#24 Anti-depressants.\u00a0 These should be higher up on the list but I&#8217;m to lazy to redo everything.\u00a0 \u00a0I don&#8217;t think I would be alive today without them.\u00a0 That is not hyperbole.<\/p>\n<p>#25 Mayor Pete.\u00a0 I hope very much to be able to vote for him for President someday.\u00a0 He gives me hope that we can come back from the awful place this country is in right now.\u00a0 We need more politicians like him- people who truly understand what &#8220;public service&#8221; means.<\/p>\n<p>#26 Living in the Midwest.\u00a0 \u00a0 Sure the weather can be brutal.\u00a0 But we don&#8217;t have hurricanes or earthquakes.\u00a0 We know our neighbors and we take care of each other.\u00a0 We really are as nice as people say we are.<\/p>\n<p>#27 Modern medicine.\u00a0 I have mental illnesses, diabetes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea.\u00a0 100 years ago I would have been dead well before I hit 40.<\/p>\n<p>#28 My car.\u00a0 I never thought I would own a subcompact crossover SUV.\u00a0 But my Kia Soul is the best car I&#8217;ve ever had and I intend to drive it until the wheels fall off.<\/p>\n<p>#29 Kansas City BBQ and its availability close to me.\u00a0 Kansas City BBQ is the best version of American BBQ and no I am not open to any debate on that.<\/p>\n<p>#30 You folks who actually read the silly, random things I write.\u00a0 I say this blog is mostly therapy, and sometimes it is, but I do appreciate that you stop by my little corner of the interwebs \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Especially in the world we live in right now it&#8217;s so important that we take a moment to sit back and reflect on all the blessings we have in our lives.\u00a0 There is so much good right in front of us that we take for granted. To that end, a very popular trend on social media is to post something&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/?p=5454\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[25,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bright-shiny-objects","category-warm-fuzzies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/thankful-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}