garrett mentioned that my last post was "sad"
this one will not be. (well, in the end)

i have a habit of reading the news every morning at work.
and listening to npr in the afternoon.
lately there are headlines like;

"Terrified 91-year-old woman fights off nighttime intruder"
"Man charged with forcing women into prostitution"
"Girls escape parents after months in captivity"
"Thieves take donation jar from business, burglarize convenience stores."


for every 20 headlines like the ones above, there is an uplifting one like
"Muslim donor will  match contributions to LDS relief efforts in Philippines"


i usually end up leaving work not only stressed out because of work, but because of everything i read and heard in the news.

garrett has been in idaho preparing for his christmas show.
that means i spent my first night alone in salt lake (took me back to him working graves. woof)
which also means i didnt fall asleep until about 4:45am.
i had a lot of time to think.
(especially about the article about the 91-year old women who fought off a night time intruder)
instead of all of the terrible things going on in the world, and in our own city
i tried to focus on what i was thankful for.
and though im sure you can guess what my top 5 are right now, im going to tell you any way.
and in no particular order.

1.garrett
2. our animals and friends
3. family
4. nature
5. hot drinks & weekends

1. garrett. he gets to experience me at my best and my worst. and he still sticks around.
he lets me day dream about buying a house, an rv,  having kids, traveling, "when we have money we can get this...!", and everything else. he encourages me to do what ever it is i want to do. he's the biggest blessing in my life and i am so thankful we ended up together.

2. our animals and friends. weird that i put them in the same category? no. here's why. our friends are the best you can find. and so are our animals. our friends love our animals, and our animals love our friends. they are all there for us when we need them, let us stay at their homes when we are in idaho, come to visit  us in salt lake, and love us even when we are hard to be around. sal and jay are the best company to have when garrett is busy.

3. family. garrett and i are both blessed with families that support us in all of our adventures and love us unconditionally. they live an hour away from each other which makes vacations nice on us, because having to pick which family to see would be way too hard. 

4. nature. this earth is incredible. there is so much to see and do outside, and there isnt enough time. i love living so close to the mountains and having them right up in my face all of the time. we are so blessed to live where we do.

5. hot drinks & weekends.  hot drinks because, have you been out side lately? its cold. and there is nothing better then snuggling up in bed with a hot drink in hand, garrett to my side and some episode pulled up on an iphone for us to share. weekends?whats that? this is something i am thankful for in the future. our weekends have mainly felt like an extension of our week. but im am excited to have our weekends back to sleep in, estate sale shop, get breakfast, and do what ever we wan to do.