Flat Tires and Leaky Roofs, a Ten Things of Thankful Post

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For once, it wasn't us with the flat tire, either.

Back to last Saturday.  My Sweetie and Brother-in-Law were supposed to go to a funeral of an old family friend a few hours drive from here.  Brother-in-Law was going to come by and they'd go to breakfast first.

Brother-in-Law showed up almost an hour early complaining he didn't feel well, and it was going to rain.

I'm thankful they listened to me when i told them to go have breakfast and see if that made him feel better, and by then the rain would be over and they'd be driving away from it anyway, as it was going the opposite direction.

Sweetie is thankful he got to go to the funeral and pay his respects to a 97-year-old who had been like a second father to him.

#2 Son and i did not fare so well on our trip to NOLA, it was one of those very heavy monsoon rains pouring buckets on us and we were thankful to make it.

We were also thankful the car right behind us that blew a tire was, in fact, behind us and managed to get off the road without causing a major accident.

Then Grandpa blew a tire on the way to church that same morning.  He was thankful to limp to a nearby tire place where they replaced it.

Mr. Cal the dog is so thankful for his sweaters.  After the rain, the temperatures dropped back to frigid (for us) and he now actually waits for us to put his sweater on (after fighting to get out of them the first couple of times, until he realized how they help).

Monday evening, i was about to leave for a meeting when #2 Son stopped by with Daughter-in-Law and Annie and said, "I'm ready to try to find where your roof is leaking."

I'm thankful the musical instrument toys i'd ordered had come in so Daughter-in-Law had something new to use to occupy Annie, thankful for the ladder the neighbor loaned us, thankful #2 Son found the leaky spot in our bedroom roof (the water drips right on my pillow when it rains hard enough), and thankful i was only five minutes late for the meeting after all.

Someone has decided clothes are optional, even in winter.

Wednesday evenings haven't been the same without our Bible study group, we're all thankful to have started back again.

Ms. G is as busy as ever and is very thankful for her new gizmo for her boat.  She's going after this new boating venture for all she's worth, just as she did the camper.

I'm thankful her getting ready to go out in the boat doesn't take nearly as much prep work from me, at least so far it doesn't seem to.

Several months ago, Link Linker the Stinker cat started having some nasty trouble with his bowels.  The vet put him on a special food and it cleared up, but then he got to where he wouldn't eat that food.  We switched him again to a canned food, and i'm thankful his bowel trouble has not returned with this switch.

Trying to get on the bank website one day, i received a very odd message about needing my new email address which had me concerned, especially as we have no new address.  I'm thankful a call to the bank set it straight, their new software is sending an odd message to everyone, telling all of us our old email is invalid and they need an update on it, it can be safely ignored.

I'm thankful the website is now back to normal, i get nervous when a financial website has some kind of glitch.

Work went pretty well every day this week, thankfully, even to Ms. V waking early so i could get to the laundry.   Also, i'm thankful the quarterly flipping of the mattresses at their house this week went well, no mishaps.

Friday evening at the shelter was another very busy one, lots of people in to pick up cats they'd preadopted, a couple of adoptions, plenty of volunteer help, and some people in looking, just knowing they will adopt as soon as they find the right cat.

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.   

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Today is:

Apple Wassailing Day -- Carhampton, England (ancient tradition to bless the trees, waking the tree spirits and scaring away bad spirits)

Blessing of the Animals -- Hispanic Christian (in association with St. Anthony's Day)

Ditch Your New Years Resolutions Day -- no info on origin, but probably someone who gave up; will you?

Felicitas -- Ancient Roman Calendar (honoring the goddess of good luck)

Festival of Janus -- Ancient Roman Calendar (main festival for the god of beginnings, endings, and doorways)

Hot Heads Chili Day -- no clue what this one means, but i guess we can have chili for dinner

Kid Inventors' Day -- celebrating how inventive kids are; on the birth anniversary of Ben Franklin, who invented swim fins at age 12

Learn to Ski Day -- always the 3rd Saturday of January, and you go right ahead

Liberation Day -- Poland (liberation from the Nazis in 1945)

Make Your All-Time Top Ten Favorite TV Characters List -- because nothing says you can't make your own top ten lists

National Hot Buttered Rum Day

Patras Carnival -- Patras, Greece (the town crier announces the opening ceremony, with festivities through Clean Monday)

Patrice Lumumba -- Democratic Republic of the Congo (Heroes' Day)

Popeye Day -- The Sailor Man’s debut in the comics was this date in 1929

Professional Boxer's Day -- Ali's birth anniversary

St. Anthony the Great's Day (a/k/a Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Patriarch of the Abbots; Patron of amputees, animals/domestic animals, basket weavers, brush makers, butchers, cemetary workers/grave diggers, epileptics, hermits, monks, relief from pestilence, swine/hogs, swineherds; Hospitaliers; Burgio, Sicily, Italy; Canas, Brazil; Castrofilippo, Agrigento, Italy; Fivizzano, Italy; Fontainemore, Italy; Mook, Netherlands; Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Italy; against eczema, epilepsy, ergotism, erysipelas, pestilence, Saint Anthony's Fire, skin diseases and rashes) related observance

     Blessing of the Animals at the Cathedral -- Church of San Antonio, Mexico City, Mexico (where this saint is San Antonio Abad)

Zirgu Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (Day of the Horses)

Anniversaries Today:

George Burns marries Gracie Allen, 1926

Octavian marries Livia Drusilla, BC38

Birthdays Today:

Kid Rock, 1971

Naveen Andrews, 1969

Michelle Obama, 1964

Jim Carrey, 1962

Susanna Hoffs, 1959

Anthony Glise, 1956

Andy Kaufman, 1949

Muhammad Ali, 1942

Maury Povich, 1939

Shari Lewis, 1934

James Earl Jones, 1931

Don Zimmer, 1931

Vidal Sassoon, 1928

Eartha Kitt, 1927

Betty White, 1922

Al Capone, 1899

Nevil Shute, 1899

Robert Maynard Hutchins, 1899

Mack Sennett, 1884

David Lloyd George, 1863

Anton Chekhov, 1860

Anne Bronte, 1820

Benjamin Franklin, 1706

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Frontline"(TV), 1983

"The Goldbergs"(TV), 1949

"Popeye the Sailor Man"(Comic character created by Elzie Segar, in the Thimble Theatre comic strip), 1929

"The Cherry Orchard"(Chekhov Play), 1904

"The Rivals"(Sheridan Play), 1775

Today in History:

Pope Gregory XI moves the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon, 1377

Cesare Borgia returns in triumph to Rome from Romagna, 1501

Giovanni da Verrazzano begins his voyage to find a passage to China, 1524

The Edict of St Germain recognizes Huguenots in France, 1562

England's Long Parliament passes the Vote of No Addresses, breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the scene for the second phase of the English Civil War, 1648

An avalanche destroys every building in Leukerbad, Switzerland, kills 53, 1718

Capt. James Cook becomes the first to cross Antarctic Circle (66° 33' S), 1773

The first cable car patented, by Andrew S Hallidie (begins service in 1873), 1871

Queen Liliuokalani is deposed, the Kingdom of Hawaii becomes a republic, 1893

Sir Robert Falcon Scott reaches the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen, 1912

The first fully automatic photographic film developing machine patented, 1928

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, is arrested by secret police in Hungary, 1945

The United Nations Security Council holds its first meeting, 1946

The Goldbergs, the first sitcom on American television, first airs, 1949

The Great Brinks Robbery - 11 thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car Company's offices in Boston, Massachusetts, 1950

The world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, makes its maiden voyage, 1955

A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea in the Palomares incident, 1966

Harald V becomes King of Norway on the death of his father, Olav V, 1991

The Czech Republic applies for membership of the European Union, 1996

Mount Nyiragongo erupts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, displacing an estimated 400,000 people, 2002

Rioting begins between Muslim and Christian groups in Jos, Nigeria, which resulting in at least 200 deaths, 2010

Japan unveils plans to build the world’s largest wind farm near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, 2013

Academics report that a pelvis bone discovered in 1999 may belong to King Alfred the Great or his son, Edward the Elder, 2014

WikiLeaks discloser Chelsea Manning's prison sentence is reduced from 35 to 7 years, 2017

Catherine, Princess of Wales has surgery for cancer while King Charles III has prostate cancer treatment, 2024

Pittsburgh Penguins Alex Nedeljkovic becomes first goalie in NHL history to have a goal and an assist in same game during 5-2 road win over the Buffalo Sabres, 2025