Thankful.

Today, I am thankful. For so many things - and I don't know if I can even express all of them.

First and foremost, I am so incredibly thankful that I have my wheels back...

I couldn't have gotten it done without the kindness and generosity of so many of you - and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I am amazed still by all of it, and it still brings me to tears if I think about it too much.

I am thankful that the transmission waited to die until we were home safely after our road trip.

I am incredibly thankful that the axle didn't fall apart until it was in the garage being repaired already - for those of you who missed that story...

The garage guy called me yesterday (was it yesterday? I think it was yesterday...) to tell me that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that he was able to locate a remanufactured transmission and wanted to put that in the van instead of a used one, but for the same price. I was thrilled with that news. But then he told me that as he was under the van working on it, the drivers side axle literally fell apart in his hands. It broke. Snapped. Crumbled. So he had to replace that, which obviously cost extra. So, I scrounged and came up with the extra money, which is going to make the rest of the month tight, but the van is fixed.

And I am so thankful that the axle broke then, and not while we were doing 75mph on the highway. Had it happened then, chances are that we wouldn't have landed upright. Or in one piece. And that thought just makes my skin crawl.

I am thankful for The Dude, for so many reasons. For him allowing me to borrow his van for the past 2 months. For making me smile when I don't really want to do it. For taking care of the kids for me while I was so sick last night that I literally couldn't stand up straight. For taking care of me and making me go to bed instead of staying up trying to get things done. For just being him and for loving me in spite of my neurotic tendencies and for "signing up" to be a part of our lives.

I am thankful for my little ghetto-esque house. The kids and I moved in to this house 2 years ago today. September 1, 2010 was the start of my new life and had I known then what I know now - wow.

I lost virtually everything in my second divorce. I lost our home because the mortgage wasn't in my name and I couldn't talk to the mortgage people to do anything about the payments that had been missed. I lost our van because again, that wasn't in my name and I couldn't renew the tags on it because of that. I lost a lot of my valuable possessions because I had to sell them to make ends meet. When I felt like my world was completely caving in around me, I found this awful little house - but I knew that I could make it work. Thanks to my church family volunteering their time to help, we got everything moved from the old house to this one. It took months to get things situated, but we eventually did it and we turned it into our home.

It's not the best house in the world - but for now, it's ours. And I know that we can stay here as long as we need to in order to save up enough money for our next move, which will be to the town where the older three kids go to school so that all of my kids can go to school in the same district. Although the house is tiny, we make it work (most of the time) and for that I am thankful.

Even though at this particular moment in time I feel like crap and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and go to sleep and not wake up until my allergy season is past, I am so incredibly thankful for my life.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Life is good.