Many, many are the things for which i am thankful. This is Letter M day in the A to Z Challenge, so i will try to come up with things that start with M.
Mikey. He's a big, fluffy goofball of a cat. He's part Maine coon and weighs in at 18 pounds (give or take an ounce). He even understands words like "outside", "here's your treat", and "stop it!" The last one he understands, but he does not obey. He's a smart cat, but still a cat.
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| Mikey, giving me the stink-eye. |
Music. There's always music playing here. Sweetie plays guitar, the young people listen to their weird music, and we older people listen to our weird music. The radio in the kitchen stays on day and night, so there's always something nice to listen to if you want.
Moon. Our Moon is really fascinating. It's the perfect size for eclipses, looks a little different every night, and causes our tides. Pretty cool tricks for a hunk of rock, if you ask me.
Medicine. Are there problems with medical care? Certainly. Does it seem everything now has a diagnosis and someone wants to treat it? It does to me. Am i glad i live when we have options and choices for treating major medical problems that do not depend on bleeding and leeches? Absolutely!
Mistakes. We all make them, and i am thankful that i do, and that i try to learn from them. Sometimes our mistakes and failures do more for us than our successes.
Marriage. Ours (mine and Sweetie's) has lasted, well, it will be 32 years this summer. It's a good thing. The other day at dinner, Little Girl said, "You two act like an old married couple!" We laughed and said it's because we are an old married couple.
Magazines. Most specifically my Reader's Digest. It's my favorite.
Motherhood. It's the best unpaid gig in the universe.
Muscles. Without muscles i couldn't do the work i do. If someone asks me to move a few hundred pounds of cat litter or vacuum behind the couch, it's muscle that makes it possible for me to comply and earn my pay.
Mail. It still gives me a bit of a thrill to go to the mail box and pull something out, or see what Sweetie pulled out if he gets there first. It may just be bills, or a circular, but sometimes there's something fun, or some good news (like yesterday when i found out it's cheaper to insure Lunceford the Land Yacht than it was Humphrey the Honda).
There you have it, thankfulness filed under the letter M. Find some things you are thankful for, it doesn't have to be with any particular letter, or even ten of them, and link up with Ten Things of Thankful. It's good medicine to be thankful.
Today is:
Banyan Tree Birthday Party -- Lahaina, Maui, Hawai'i (celebrating the "birthday" of Lahaina's most important landmark, their banyan tree planted back in 1973, which now covers over 2/3 of an acre; cake, nature displays, kid activities, history exhibits and more, through tomorrow)
Caballo de Paso Peruano -- Pachacamac, Peru (National Contest of Paso Horses/The National Horse Competition of the native Peruvian horse, the Paso; through the 20th)
Celtic Tree Month Saille (willow) begins
Day of the Sun -- North Korea (Kim Il Sung's Birthday Holiday)
Fast Food Day -- the first franchised McDonald's opened this day in 1955 in Des Plaines, IL, US
Father Damien Day -- Hawaii, US (Patron of lepers)
Feria Nacional de San Marcos -- Palenque, Mexico (through May 7; feast of San Marcos, with rodeos, bull fights, folk dancing, parades, mariachi and muchos mas)
Festival of Heru; Festival of Bast -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)
Fluff Appreciation Day -- internet generated; i guess as a distraction for Tax Day
Fordicalia -- Ancient Roman Calendar (cow sacrifice to the earth mother, Tellus Mater)
Georgia Renaissance Spring Festival -- Atlanta, GA, US (weekends through June 4)
Guangzhou (Canton) Spring Trade Fair -- Guangzhou (Canton), China (a month-long spring trade fair held the same dates each year)
Hillsborough Disaster Memorial -- Anfield at Liverpool, England
Holy Saturday -- Christian (a/k/a Black Saturday, Holy Saturday, Easter Saturday, or Easter Eve)
Husband Appreciation Day
Income Tax Pay Day -- Philippines
Jackie Robinson Day -- Major League Baseball
National Auctioneers Day -- recognizing the contribution of auctioneers to American commerce
National Glazed Ham Day
Rubber Eraser Day -- today in 1770, Joseph Priestly described a vegetable gum which had the ability to rub out pencil marks
St. Hunna's Day (Patron of laundresses, laundry workers, washerwomen)
Swallow Day -- England (traditional date of the return of chimney swallows)
Take a Wild Guess Day -- sponsored by Jim Barber as a day to honor guesses, hunches, inspirations, speculations and other forms of “intuitive intelligence”
Teach Your Daughter to Volunteer Day -- encouraging awareness of volunteerism, but the original sponsor of the day is no longer online
Tipsa Diena -- Ancient Latvian Calendar (celebration of the start of plowing)
Titanic Remembrance Day
World Creativity and Innovation Week -- always begins on DaVinci's birth anniversary
World Art Day -- because he was an artist as well as inventor
Anniversary Today:
Gallaudet University is founded, 1817 (first US public school for the deaf)
Birthdays Today:
Emma Watson, 1990
Ilya Kovalchuck, 1983
Seth Rogen, 1982
Patrick Carney, 1980
Anna Torv, 1978
Emma Thompson, 1959
Evelyn Ashford, 1957
Heloise Cruse Evans, 1951
Amy Wright, 1950
Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, 1947
Claudia Cardinale, 1939
Roy Clark, 1933
Elizabeth Montgomery, 1933
Leon Schotter, 1922
Harold Washington, 1922
Hilda Simms, 1920
Hans Conried, 1917
Bessie Smith, 1894
Thomas Hart Benton, 1889
Sam Rodia, 1875
John Munroe Longyear, 1850
Henry James, 1843
Joseph E. Seagram, 1841
Charles Willson Peale, 1741(O.S. date)
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452
Debuting/Premiering Today:
"In Living Color"(TV), 1990
"Driving Miss Daisy"(Play), 1987
Today in History:
Pope Innocent III refuses to grant permission to the Jews of Cordova, Spain, to build a synagogue, 1250
Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language is published in London, 1755
The first school for the deaf in the US opens in Hartford, Connecticut, 1817
The last day US silver coins are allowed to circulate in Canada, 1870
Harley Proctor begins producing Ivory Soap, 1878
General Electric Company is incorporated, 1892
The Titanic sinks, 1912
Insulin becomes available to diabetics, 1923
Rand McNally publishes its first road atlas, 1924
Jackie Robinson debuts with the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947
White Rock, British Columbia officially separates from Surrey, British Columbia and is incorporated as a new city, 1957
Tokyo Disney Resort (and the Tokyo Disneyland park) opens in Tokyo Bay (Japan), 1983
Upon Hu Yaobang's death, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 begin in the People's Republic of China, 1989
Representatives of 124 countries and the European Communities sign the Marrakesh Agreements revising the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and initiating the World Trade Organization, 1994
Astronomers at San Francisco State University announce the discovery of the first multiplanet solar system besides our own, three planets around Upsilon Andromedaie, 1999
Volcanic ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland leads to the closure of airspace over most of Europe, 2010
In a Schrodinger's cat experiment, researchers in Japan and Australia successfully teleport wave packets of light; this is the first transfer of quantum information from one point to another, 2011