Challenge Accepted

I’ve always enjoyed a good challenge. When I was in 5^th grade, I competed in the Spelling Bee, even though I was up against 6^th graders, and I won! In high school, I broke the season rebounding record my junior year and had an article written about it in the newspaper. The journalist congratulated me and said I’d certainly end up in the top 5 for career rebounds but that I’d wind up well short of the all-time leader.  I worked hard all season and wound up not only beating the previous season record I had set the year before, but also seizing the career record. It was pretty amazing. So when I read my friend’s semi-recent post listing 100 things she’s thankful for and saw her challenge at the end of it, I knew I needed to sit down and do it, too. Oh, Thanksgiving was last week you say? Well, I guess I didn’t want to jump off the same bridge everyone else was ;)

Here we go! *in no particular order other than the order they came to mind*

1. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit (I thought it would be cheating to list them as 3 separate numbers…)

2. Friends.

3. Family.

4. My house.

5. Having enough food to eat.

6. My upcoming internship.

7. Access to medicine.

8. Snail mail.

9. Laughter.

10. Babies.

11. Catching up with good friends.

12. Travelling.

13. Having enough money to live comfortably.

14. Finding new friends via blogging.

15. Prayer.

16. Changing seasons.

17. My car.

18. Peace of mind.

19. Joy.

20. Hope.

21. Coffee.

22. Ice cream!

23. My health.

24. Daily mass.

25. The Bible.

26. Warm clothes.

27. The sound of the furnace turning on.

28. Bible study.

29. Good books.

30. Television.

31. Musicals.

32. Having friends who can sing!

33. Catholicism.

34. Email/Skype/Facebook/etc.

35. Library cards.

36. My glasses.

37. Courage

38. Others’ perspectives.

39. Free time.

40. Memories.

41. The mission trip to the Philippines.

42. Vacations I’ve taken to Europe.

43. The smell of homemade bread.

44. Beauty.

45. Truth.

46. My five senses.

47. Spending time with friends’ families.

48. Sunsets.

49. Trees during autumn.

50. Love.

51. Momma Mary.

52. Church traditions.

53. Recycling.

54. Blood donations.

55. Flowers.

56. The Sacraments.

57. TV show season premieres.

58. Music, live and on the radio.

59. My iPod.

60. Hot cocoa.

61. Silence.

62. Hair products.

63. Finding a good quote.

64. The saints!

65. Hugs.

66. Wine tasting.

67. Bringing joy to others.

68. Teeth.

69. Pita chips.

70. Pictures.

71. Popsicles.

72. Nature.

73. Jokes.

74. Disney movies.

75. Getting invited to things.

76. Easter Vigil.

77. GPS.

78. Fresh fruit.

79. Miracles.

80. Finding the good in the bad.

81. Learning new things.

82. Forgiveness.

83. Having the perfect example to follow.

84. Smiles.

85. Doctors and nurses.

86. Second chances.

87. Having wisdom imparted on me.

88. Christmas concerts.

89. Veterans.

90. People who chew with their mouths closed.

91. Low interest rates on loans.

92. Snow plows.

93. My phone.

94. Online banking.

95. Baby laughter.

96. Candles that smell like real Christmas trees.

97. Stars in the sky.

98. My laptop.

99. TV on DVD.

100. All of you wonderful people who read my extremely random blog.

That may quite possibly be the most random list of items I’ve ever compiled. Who knew I had so many things to be thankful for :) 

Did I just hear my phone buzz??

Nope...that was just the TV playing tricks on me.

I feel like there's some sort of reference I'm not getting here...see Jen. And now see Erica. (Just to be clear, I do not mean that I've missed the whole hurricane-hitting-the-east-coast disaster. We may live out in the boonies, but I still get TV and internet. I'm talkin' bout the title. Pure coincidence? I'm leaning toward no. So fill a sister in!)

Completely off topic (wait, have I established a topic yet...?), but 30 Rock is on in the background and Jenna just said, "There's no 'I' or 'me' in America." Liz is standing behind her, shaking her head, and mouthing, "there's both..." Baha!

I had the opportunity to babysit on Sunday. At one point, I asked the little 3 year old if she wanted some fruit. She replied, "No. But thanks for asking." Too cute :)

And now for the meat and potatoes of this post. I probably should have decided what that was going to be before I started typing...hmmm...this very bright white page is not inspiring at all. I could probably spend some more time droning on about friendship woes, buuuut let's see if we can come up with anything else first. Got it!

Things I have to think about at home that never crossed my mind at school:

1. I've got a little less than a quarter tank of gas left. Better fill up before I go home or I may not make it home and back to the gas station since the nearest one is 20ish minutes away.

2. I'm hungry. Order a pizza you say? I can't--no one delivers out here.

3. How many MB of data does watching this YouTube video use? (and the answer is always 'how the heck would I even go about figuring that out??) Yeah....unlimited high speed internet doesn't exist out here so no catching up on TV shows on Hulu or watching that funny/cute/horrifying video making it's way around Facebook. Apparently Comcast doesn't think it's worth their time or effort.

4. I wonder which church has mass today. There are 3 Catholic churches within a 7 mile radius but none of them have mass every day.

5. I better make a list of every single errand I need to run because I won't be going back into civilization for a few days.

6. How long has it been since I've actually talked to someone? (At one point, I think it was 3 days because my mom was gone for the weekend and I didn't have anywhere to go. I finally broke the fast by talking to the girl working the Dairy Queen drive-thru...)

7. If I sit on the edge of the chair with the phone tilted at a 34 degree angle on the right arm, I get one bar of signal. However, I lose it if I switch to the left arm.

8. I wonder if this light breeze is going to knock our satellite TV out like it did last week.

9. As we're baking cookies, "oh shoot we're out of butter!" "Well, put the partially made dough in the fridge and we'll finish it tomorrow after we go grocery shopping."

10. You mean I can just leave my clothes in the washer or dryer and no one will move them?? Or if they do, they'll move them to the proper place?? (aka the dryer or my bed :D)

11. Where are all the other 20somethings?!

As always, thank you for not judging the randomness that is my thought process and have a wonderful night :) Oh! And sorry for the lack of pictures lately--can't risk going over our allotted data usage again. I'll try and steal some internet from Barnes and Noble the next time I'm there ;)