That time of year...

With Thanksgiving just a few days away i have made a list of the things in my life that I am most grateful for. I went with a bakers dozen because it's my favorite quantity and im posting it now because with a house full of people to cook for on Thursday im afraid i wont have time on the actual day of giving thanks...

1. My awesome husband: who makes me laugh constantly and because of whom I never doubt how loved I am.

2. My family: though many of them make, me nuts at times I have nothing but love and admiration for all of them

3. My amazing friends: who know me better then many family members and love me in spite of what they know.

4. My adorable pets

5. My healthy pregnancy: already feisty baby, and my 1st trimester becoming a more distant memory each day.

6. A cozy home: that makes me breathe a sigh of comfort every morning when I wake up and every evening when I get home.

7. My job: that allows me to be around friends all day and bosses (N & L) that are more like family than the traditional idea of "boss".

8. Never to be forgotten, my other love, Portland. I love this city and am so grateful to live here and to get to raise my children here.

9. Chocolate milk & Tums: thank you for being my cocktail of choice in my GERD-filled pregnancy.

10. My brain: though recently thanks to a healthy dose of pregnancy hormones I haven't seen you all that much, I'm proud to say that I have a brain and i know how to use it. No shrinking violet am I and I'm very proud of it!

11. Because it's Thanksgiving it must be said (in the most liberal non-right wing conservative way) Being an American: Taking nothing away from any other country, I'm just being thankful for my own. It may not be perfect--what place is?--but I love it nonetheless.

12. The hard times: Because they've made me stronger and wiser, and the good times even better.

13. Rainy days: I love knowing the world around me is getting watered. Rainy days are also a great excuse to curl up with a blanket and a good book