What I'm thankful for

It's quiet in the apartment as I watch my menorah keep an eye on it while watching a show on my laptop and I am thankful for the quiet. It is hard living with other people and coming home after a hard day of work and being surrounded by noise, and being asked how my day is when I don't care to talk about it.

But at the same time I am thankful that I have people in my life who ask me about my day.

I am thankful for my free time, which is rare these days. Between work and school I am pretty busy and have very few hours that I can just relax.

I get a call from a friend asking if I can come over and babysit now. She took a gamble that I wouldn't be in school and she got lucky. It is cold and rainy out and the thought of leaving the house on my free night is not welcoming. But I always tell her "call me if you need me" and I am always busy when she does, so I go. And I am thankful for the three gorgeous cuties who keep me company when they are supposed to be sleeping. The 3 year old tells me about the menorah he made, and squeezing 'shemen zayis' into his menorah and I want to pinch his cheeks. I say I'll tell them one bedtime story and I struggle to remember the story of Chanukah, something about Antiachus the wicked king, he did to the Jews a terrible thing, and besides he was so mean....- hey it's hard to forget that song. But the kids help fill in the blanks and we get through the story just fine. Then I tell them it's time to sleep.

I am thankful that I have a job where I feel appreciated necessary for the cause and I feel accomplished (when I don't want to strangle someone). I like that I have my work 'people' and work jokes and am a part of it.

I am thankful that I get to leave work at work and go home at the end of the day and not think about it.

We take so many things for granted, like food and shelter and money. I can't imagine my life any other way, neither richer nor poorer. I have come to accept that what I have is mine and I achieved it, I earned it. But it can be taken away in a second.

I am thankful that I feel content and grounded in life, that I am proud of what I have done and where I am heading. I am proud of what I left behind, it is great to be able to recognize that at any given moment in life, you are where you were meant to be.

Happy first night of Chanukah. Have a donut!