A Special Week, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

 ***********************************

It’s Thankful Day during the week of both Grandma’s birthday and Mother’s Day, a trifecta of good things.

I’m thankful to have finally had an eye doctor appointment which gave me some answers about my eye and what we can do about it.  I’m thankful to be on medicine to see if it will help, and if it does not, to have a surgeon who can correct what was done incorrectly.

After two weeks with either her being gone or me being gone, i was thankful to be able to go to Ms. G’s house and catch her up, especially on the vacuuming.

She and i are both thankful, since she couldn’t find her checkbook, she had cash to pay me and she was able to put a notice on her checking account for the missing checks so no one could use them (she thinks it fell out of the car).

As for Grandma, we are thankful to still have her.  She’s my mom, my children’s grandmother, and she’s our much loved matriarch.

We have preparations going for a big weekend.

Instead of trying to help her go out to eat (she really can’t leave the house much any more), i’m thankful we’re doing a BBQ at the house.

I was able to get her a big cookie bouquet for her birthday, and i’m thankful none of the cookies broke on the way home.

Thankfully, supplies are laid in, two kinds of potato salad, two kinds of regular salad, fresh bottles of ketchup, mustard and mayo are already ready, and the rest will be bought today (Saturday).  

We’re thankful Uncle J (my brother, my children’s uncle) will be grilling burgers, hotdogs and sausages.

I’m also prepared with both an orchid and some chocolate covered strawberries for Grandma’s Mother’s Day gift, and i’m thankful while i was at it i was able to get roses and strawberries for Ms. D and Ms. JAI, neither of whom will see their children on Mother’s Day.

Also, i’m thankful to have extra chocolate covered strawberries for my daughter-in-law.  She’s very special and i’m thankful she’s a fabulous mother to our little Annie.

Who wouldn’t be thankful for this sweet one?

Bonus thankful, when i tripped at Ms. GA’s house yesterday, i knew it was going to be a bad hit, but i was thankful when it felt like something stopped my forward progress and all i did was land, rather softly, on my knee and my hand and hurt neither of them.  I’m sure it was my guardian angel.

Please write up your own list and link up to Ten Things of Thankful, where Clark and his co-hosts always have a warm welcome waiting.   

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

***********************************

Today is:

Birth Mother's Day -- the day before Mother's Day, for all the women who have made an adoption plan for their babies

Clean up Your Room Day -- one of those holidays that no one knows how it got started, but it's a good idea, especially if your house is decorated by teens in "Recently Ransacked" style!

Constitution Day -- Federated States of Micronesia

Cornelia de Lange Syndrome Awareness Day -- shedding light on this rare genetic condition 

Golden Spike Day -- finishing the first US Transcontinental Railroad in 1869

Letter Carriers "Stamp Out Hunger" Food Drive -- US (place non-perishable food items by your mail box, and help stamp out hunger in your area)

Mother's Day -- Belize; El Salvador; Guatemala; Mexico (always May 9 in these countries)

National Babysitter's Day -- US, giving recognition to the babysitters who make your date nights possible

National Shrimp Day

O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships --  Austin, TX, US (at the park behind the O. Henry Museum, presented by The P.U.N.Y. [Punsters United Nearly Yearly])    

Stay Up All Night Night -- as declared by George Mahood of Northampton, England, everyone needs to relive the excitement of staying up late like you always wanted to as a kid at least once a year

St. Cathal's Day (Patron of blind people, drought relief, epileptics, paralyzed people; Taranto, Italy; against blindness, drought, epilepsy, hernias, paralysis, plagues, storms)

St. Father Damien of Moloka'i's Day (Patron of lepers, outcasts, those with HIV/AIDS; Hawaii)

St. Job the Patriarch's Day (Patron against depression and ulcers)

Sun Awareness Day -- like Melanoma Monday, a few days back, a day to remember the damage the sun can do to skin and stock up on sunscreen, if you haven't already

Trust Your Intuition Day -- practice, and you'll get better at it

Windmill Day -- Netherlands (on the second Saturday of May each year, more than 600 windmills, including many that are now national monuments, are open to the public)

World Belly Dance Day --  to celebrate the wonderful art of belly dance 

World Fair Trade Day -- sponsored by the World Fair Trade Organization; this year's theme is "Climate Justice" 

World Lupus Day   

World Migratory Bird Day -- original date second Saturday in May, but the WMBD organization encourages you to celebrate when birds are migrating in your area; this year's theme is "Shared Spaces: Creating Bird-Friendly Cities and Communities"; one celebration that is on this date:

     International Migratory Bird Celebration -- Chincoteague, VA, US (walks, talks, tours, art, and children's activities, all outdoors with the birds)

Birthdays Today:

Kenan Thompson, 1978

Amanda Borden, 1977

Jason Brooks, 1966

Paul "Bono" Hewson, 1960

Phil and Steve Mahre, 1957

Donovan, 1946

Dave Mason, 1946

Marie-France Pisier, 1944

Judith Jamison, 1943

Gary Owens, 1936

Barbara Taylor Bradford, 1933

Pat Summerall, 1930

Ara Raoul Parseghian, 1923

Nancy Walker, 1922

T. Berry Brazelton, 1918

"Mother" Maybelle Carter, 1909

David O. Selznick, 1902

Fred Astaire, 1899

Max Steiner, 1888

Karl Barth, 1868

George Ross, 1730

Emperor Fushimi of Japan, 1265

Emperor Claudius, 213

Debuting/Premiering Today:

Twister(Film), 1996

"The Rest of the Story"(Radio), 1976

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major(Shostakovich Op. 102), 1957

Today in History:

The Roman armies under Titus open a full scale assault on Jerusalem, 70

Vienna's church orders all Jews to wear a distinctive garb, 1267

Scottish nobles recognize authority of English king Edward I, 1291

Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves on a voyage to the New World, 1497

Christopher Columbus "discovers" the Cayman Islands, 1503

Jacques Cartier visits Newfoundland, 1534

Scottish Protestants under John Knox uprise against queen-mother Mary, 1559

England forcefully annexes Jamaice from Spain, 1655

Benjamin Franklin first tests the lightning rod, 1752

Louis XVI becomes King of France, 1774

The Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America, 1801

New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels, 1837

In India, the first war of Independence begins, 1857

The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah (not Promontory Point, Utah) with the golden spike, 1869

Romania  declares itself independent from Turkey, 1877

The Supreme Court of the United States rules in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is a vegetable, not a fruit, under the Tariff Act of 1883, 1893

The first Mother's Day is observed, 1908

J. Edgar Hoover is appointed Director of the FBI, 1924

First successful launch of a V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground, 1946

Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts, 1954

The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes Operation Sandblast, the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth, 1960

The Federated States of Micronesia  becomes self-governing, 1979

François Mitterrand becomes the first Socialist President of France in the French 5th republic, 1981

Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president, 1994

Deadliest day on the mountain: a rogue storm on Everest claims 8 lives, including experienced climbers, 1996

The Maeslantkering, a storm surge barrier in the Netherlands that is one of the world's largest moving structures, is opened by Queen Beatrix, 1997

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is the youngest Justice and third woman nominated for the Supreme Court of the United States, 2010

Microsoft announces plans to purchase Skype, 2011

An Indian fertility clinic announces that a 70 year old woman has successfully gave birth to a baby boy, 2016

The United States Geological Survey releases a report saying that some glaciers in Montana have receded by 85% in the last 50 years, 2017

Mahathir Mohamad is sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia, the world's oldest leader at 92, 2018

Taxi service Uber becomes a publicly traded company, 2019

Prince Charles delivers the Queen's Speech at the state opening of the UK parliament for the first time, 2022

Human genomic studies take a leap forward with the publication of the first of 47 DNA profiles from people in all areas of the world as an attempt to capture the entirety of human genetic variation, 2023