Thankful Thursday - Busyness

"This is how you make it into some kind of a chop weapon," says my son as I sit here in our torn-apart family room watching the sunrise through our fingerprinted window.

He's playing with his Ninjago Legos (shocker, I know), and I've just woken up and gotten myself a cup of coffee.

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Although we're still technically on summer vacation, the countdown has begun to our return to school.  Yup.  T minus 4 days.  Boo.

This is how I feel about it in a nutshell:

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And our next few days are jam-packed full of activities, errands, and mundane tasks that have to get finished up because we've procrastinated.

And, as if our return to school preparations weren't enough, we've decided to completely tear apart our family room and give it a makeover.  Like we don't have enough to do.

We've taken down this awful, high-gloss wainscoting that covered the bottom half of the room, only to find that it was all glued on and has literally left holes in our walls.  The ceiling needed to be repainted because of all the black smoke marks from my candle-burning.  (By the way, have any of you found candles that don't give off black smoke?)  The search for the perfect wall color has officially begun, and there are pieces of wood and tons of nails laying all over between my son's toys.  (I know, safe, right?)

I have phone calls to make, a stop at D.'s school to fill out some extra paperwork, dentist appointments, hair appointments, and lesson planning to do.  We also have family commitments, doctor appointments, and birthday parties all in the next week.

But you know what?  As much as I get tired of all of these things on our "to do" list, I'm also thankful for our busyness.  We're lucky to have the opportunity to get to these commitments.  We have a home to come home to (even with the mess that it is), we have cars to get us where we need to be, and we have our good health.

There are so many people in our country and even around the world who do not have these things we often take for granted.  There will be children who come into my library who do not have basic necessities, like clean clothes, a home, or family to love.  That breaks my heart.

So, today, I'm remembering how thankful I am for all we have.

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What are YOU thankful for today?