full cup

I am feeling full at the moment.  Full of life and love and thankfulness.

I'm super thankful for my family.  I love that we kiss each other. Sometimes on the cheek, sometimes on the mouth.  I love when I hang out with my extended family and I hear stories of their lives and I think "that is so me. I am so like that person."  it makes me feel connected to them in some ways.  I love that I can be myself and be crazy and sing random songs and they let me.  I love that they get me.

I love that my home is not located so much in a place... but in people. I love that I can be in Iowa, snuggling with a snotty one year old and feel just like I do when I'm curled on my couch, talking with a good friend in California.  I love that my friends greet me with a smile and a huge hug... even when it's been years since we've hugged.

I'm thankful and totally worshipping God that there are fall leaves on the trees still.  Hmmm I caught the end of fall in the midwest.

I'm thankful for friends who are generous and offer to let my husband take the pillow that he was so enamored with.  There wasn't even a second thought of, "oh but what will we do without that pillow?".  I'm thankful for friends who fight to pay for the check and who share their lives with us, letting us sit around the dinner table and "shark pray" or eat pizza or tickle their sweet babies.  I'm thankful for every one of these babies for all my friends who I prayed for and with for these sweet babies.

I'm thankful for people who are genuinely interested in hearing about Japan and about our lives.  Who say, "Ohhhh Joanna... two years in language school....." and I smile and just laugh.  They know me.  They know that I am a people person and two years in a book would dry my heart up.  But I assure them, I'll meet neighbors.

I'm thankful for good coffee.
Good conversations.
Fireplace moments.
Games.
Cinnamon scones and the guy at the grocery store who helped me find cinnamon chips.

I'm thankful for a husband who drives across states and flies across the country and gobbles up tiramisu and is so gosh darn cute....

I'm thankful for so much.