Thankful Thursday--March 15

The Ides of March!!  Also, if you do the whole Christmas Eve/Christmas Adam thing, it's St. Patrick's Day Adam!  Which means it's my birthday Adam!  Yes, I'm that crazy.

Okay, so it's also Thursday, and I've been woefully negligent of the blog lately, especially Thankful Thursday.  I think J would tell you I've been forgetting to count my blessings in everyday life, too.  I have to tell you, though, that Spring makes such a difference.  I am so thankful for the warm and dry weather we've been experiencing.  I actually just came in from a quick walk--something I'm usually only enticed to do when it's perfect outside.  Even during my Lenten challenge, I usually put my walks off until late in the day unless a friend wants to go at a certain time.  The weather outside my window was just too pretty, too breezy, too ideal to not get out and enjoy it!  I think Zep enjoyed it, too.

I'm thankful too for my work at St. R.  It's getting very busy (Holy Week approaches!) and it's made busier still by my plans to be out of the office for DAR and an upcoming vacation.  At my old job, there would have been an expectation that I be in the office 9-6 or 7 without  break.  Here, the expectation is that I get my work done and that someone be there to answer the phones.  That's it.  If I need (or want) to take a break, and there's a warm voice answering the phone, I can leave.  I always knew at my old job that after a few hours of steady work, I needed a break.  Fifteen minutes of exercise or an hour of mindless chitchat would do, but I needed that early afternoon break.  It wasn't generally approved of.  I could get the fifteen minute walk by arguing that it was a 'smoke break'.  Those of you who've worked in offices with smokers know that the smoke break isn't questioned or interfered with.  I got away with mine, even though it obviously involved tennis shoes and no cigarettes.  Yesterday, when a volunteer came by and suggested an afternoon walk, all it took was asking Fr. J to grab the phones for a while.  I got out of the office for half an hour, cleared my head (logged some steps!), and came back ready to dive back into work.  I am so thankful for this work environment.

Finally, my last bit of very excited thankfulness is that we finally closed on the refinancing!  We still feel like the whole process took entirely too long, but we managed to shorten our loan term by ten years without really changing our monthly payment.  As someone who really doesn't like being in debt, knowing we are making progress toward our biggest debt is reassuring.  And, the closing costs weren't nearly as much as we expected, so we're thankful to have a chunk of house-designated money 'pre-saved' for another project (khaki-colored trim, perhaps?).

What are you thankful for this week?