just another day of Catholic pondering

The Thankful Train is still chugging away in my neighborhood, in part because I was too sick on Thanksgiving — or on the day after — to cook.

I’m thankful, today, for the turkey that tasted delightful, along with all the sides served on my pretty green china, and for a day, quiet and full, in which to clean all the dishes and cupboards touched by what my mother-in-law calls “mouse dirt.”  (In the last 36 hours, my Nutcracker Prince has protected me from TEN of the little buggers, and my helpful MIL shared a stomach-wrenching statistic earlier today: where there’s one caught, there are ten in the nest.  *scream*)

I’m thankful for Advent, and I’m thankful for doing better at not hating Christmas.

I’m thankful for Mary.  Yes, I really am.  And you can hear all about it in this week’s (or, rather, last week‘s) Mary Moment.

I’m thankful for a few minutes — Sunday or no — to blog.

And, most of all, I’m thankful for this day six years ago, the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent that year, when I walked down an aisle in a white dress, holding my dad’s arm and watching my strong, tall Prince Charming’s face, both of us worried about flower girls who hadn’t made it (turns out they were fine, just fine, though devastated at missing their spotlight).  (And I’m thankful for the post I wrote last year, which I just stumbled upon, started sniffling as I reread it, and think I will print out for him…)