Being thankful, Project 365...

As you age, you hit certain milestones.  It's part of life.  You first start noticing people growing up when those baby cousins of yours are no longer babies.  Seriously?  What happened?

In life, you notice that people do things at similar times.  You tend to go through seasons.  Seasons of weddings.  Then a season of children while the kids start being born.  Then, the marriages start falling apart.  You start to have divorces, or friends that are not happy in their relationships.

Soon it'll be my kids growing up, going to prom, going off to college.  Then, people our age will start retiring, and paying off mortgages, and moving to Arizona and Florida, and start to become grandparents.

This week, we hit an unexpected new time of life.  One of my husbands co-workers, his friend, passed away yesterday.  He was only 34. He had a massive heart attack while leaving work.  He is survived by his wife and two kids.  His kids came between my two in age.

He's been working at this place, pretty much as long as my husband.  My husband has been there for 10 years. He was always very nice, fun, sometimes even snarky like I am, when I would visit my husband.  My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, his kids, his family and friends now, as they have lost someone so unexpectedly.  

I can't even begin to imagine how hard this must be for his family.  He really still had his whole life in front of him.  He'd barely done a third or his life when this happened.  This was just so unexpected.

With a better understanding every day, of just exactly how short life is, I'm going to tell you what parts of life, and parts of my family that I've been grateful for this past week.

 1-25 (I failed to take pics on 1-24)

I'm grateful for this girl and the way she makes me smile by wearing the same pair of socks for 3 days because of how warm they are.

1-25 (2)

This guy.  I'm grateful that when I don't feel well, he will get silly to make me smile.  Captured here, rocking my hat.

1-26

I'm grateful for this girl and her awesome smile.  She's super caring, and wants to do nice things for you just so that you will be happy.  Love this kid.

1-27

This guy was so done with it, but managed to add a smile when he noticed the camera.  He puts up with me and my crazy gassy kids and he actually seems to enjoy us.  I'm grateful that he is here, and wants to be here with me and with the girls, no matter how gross we all are.

1-28

I'm grateful for this hot mess.  She's just starting to take an interest in how she looks, so she doesn't look like this all the time.  I'm grateful I get to see the young woman she is growing into.

1-28

This one came in to bother me while I was working.  She is spitting and making fart noises.  I'm grateful she's still comes in and tells me she wants me, just wanting to be with me.

1-29

I'm grateful for Nutella, and the way this kid eats it instead of butter, peanut butter, or jelly.  "I want eggs and toast with 'tella for breakfast."  The chocolate face is killer.

1-29

I'm grateful to this mutt for showing me how to accept a new member of the household, even when I wasn't always happy with him.

Life is short people.  We really don't know how much time we have.  Be grateful for what you have, and make sure that your loved ones really know how much they mean to you.