Thankful Thursday: So Many Things...

Good morning! It's my day off and I couldn't be happier to have time to catch up on chores and spend a little time relaxing. It's cold this morning, but the clouds are supposed to clear out and the temperature should top out around 50 degrees. Not too shabby for the mountains of Pennsylvania at the end of October.  

I'm also happy to have time to link up with Rebecca Jo @ Knit By God's Hand and all the rest of the ladies for Thankful Thursday, the day when we share the things we're thankful for in our daily lives.

This week I am thankful....

** to still be avoiding whatever bug my husband and mom have been fighting for several weeks now.

** for a good night's sleep and even being able to fall back to sleep for a couple more hours after Tim left for work this morning.

** that for a change it's not supposed to rain on my day off.

** for the lovely, lazy Sunday Tim and I had. We made a big pot of beef vegetable soup, but otherwise were totally unambitious and just watched movies, read, and napped.

** our daughter seems to be getting some relief from her anxiety through the use of cannabis oil. We know a few people using it for different illnesses and they are having great results. This is supposed to be different from regular stuff, in that it doesn't have the component that gives you the "high." She is trying to talk Tim into trying it, but we need to do more research about that last bit. It would be awesome if he could get relief from the constant pain, but not if it means he couldn't pass a drug test at work. Do any of you have any experience or information?

** that every day at work seems to feel more and more natural. I'm hitting my stride and beginning to feel confident...even though on the dementia side of things it is getting more and more challenging as the residents are less and less coherent.

** that I finally have a specific purpose for my afternoons in the dementia wing. I'm in an odd situation there. I am the fill-in when the regular girl has days off. The regular girl is also a CNA so she starts at 6:30 so she can help with getting the residents up and ready for the day. She leaves at 2:30 each afternoon so there's only a little bit of overlap with the afternoon girl and she usually falls back into the CNA roll at that point. When I'm there I'm there until 5:00 and I've never felt really sure what to do in the afternoons because the other girl is the lead since it's her shift.

As of this week, I finally have a purpose! I help with the group craft or cooking class after lunch and then I am "the calmer." We have several residents who get quite agitated in the afternoons. They often need to leave the group and participate in some activity that calms them or just have one on one attention. I'm pretty good at calming the "problem" people so my afternoon job is now dealing with them exclusively. I like having a purpose and it gives the afternoon girl a better chance of accomplishing her goals since she isn't having to deal with it.

** for Colton's cute little hugs and kisses...though he's beginning to get a little stingy with them.

** to have sorted through all the benefit information from work and have those decisions made and behind me.

** for Comcast's On Demand feature. Our daughter and Colton were here last night when A Million Little Things was on and Colton made it impossible to hear so I put one of his shows on and will watch mine sometime today.

** the ladies who were so grumpy and ill-behaved the last time I had to work until 8:00 were really nice last night. They didn't fight over the game. They didn't fight with each other. They didn't spend the whole time telling me how wonderful one of the other girls is and how she does everything. We laughed and had a good time...though I thought I might collapse on the floor.

Seven of them were gathered around three dinner tables pulled together (about a 12ft length) and only one of them can actually play the game without someone telling them what card to play, so.....I spent a full 2 hours running constant circles around the table to help each one. At one point, one of the ladies said "I don't know CPR." We all looked at her kind of funny and she said, "Well, I wanted you to know if you pass out I can't save you." Oh my gosh, we laughed so hard. I assured her since we were only a few feet from the nurses station one of them would probably come running if I keeled over. From there they wanted to know how much I was getting paid, because it wasn't enough to be running like that and do I check my weight to see if I lose weight doing my job.

It was such a sweet and welcome change from the last time I helped them with cards.

** for the prayers of my believing friends.

** for the faithfulness of the Lord.

** as always, for each one of you and the joy you add to my days.

Have a blessed and happy day, everyone!