Thankful Thursday London Edition: Joy Dare Week 10

Wow, so here I am typing this blog post from London England, where I arrived yesterday for two weeks of vacation. To be honest, it's a little surreal! Yesterday, I had made no plans since I expected to be pretty tired. With only about 2 hours of sleep on the flight, that turned out to be a good decision.

I brought this month's pages from my gift-counting journal with me for my trip, and I expect the next few weeks will involve numerous photos. While I brought the March pages with me, I forgot to note the number of the last gift I counted in February, so I have no idea what number I'm on. Ooops! I'll have to update this later, but for now, here are this week's gifts I wanted to share.

Update: Now with numbers!

182. Celebrating the birthday of a wonderful sister-in-law with a fabulous night out.

190. Safe trip to the airport and easy check in.

192. An in-flight personal entertainment system! I watched 3 movies on the flight.

194. First views of England from the plane as we descended through the cloud layer approaching Heathrow airport.

Also, this wasn't officially on my list, but if you've ever seen the movie Love Actually, there is a scene at the end of the movie where lots of travelers are arriving at Heathrow airport. Can I just tell you it felt awesome to walk through the doors and have a friend waiting to welcome me with a giant smile?

Thankful Thursday: Joy Dare Week 9

I'd confessed a couple weeks ago that I was falling behind on counting. As I write this, it's already a few days after the scheduled date for the post. I think I'm still a little behind, but I'm not going to look at the numbers. I'm just going to "Keep Calm and Count On" (graphic from the free Complete Joy Collection printable at the A Holy Experience blog):

Gifts for this week:

153-160. At my job at church, we had our staff party this week, so I counted each staff person as a gift this week. I work with a GREAT group of people!

162. A beautiful truth in Sunday's sermon.

170. A new computer mouse at work. (Yep, counting the little things. Isn't it cute???)

174. I didn't run out of gas in the car today. Despite not paying attention to the gas gauge until it was already well beyond "light going on" low....!

Lastly, a pic from a couple weeks ago, I finally just saved this from the memory card on my old phone.

119. Playing "Ticket to Ride" with my cousins from Alberta.

Thankful Thursday: Joy Dare Week 8

Another week with lots of photos. I'm having a little fun with this photo thing, can you tell?

135. Finding this fortune-cookie fortune in my wallet. About a week after the date on it, I bought a ticket to go to London in March, in part because the friend I'd shared Chinese food with helped talk me into it.

138. February blossoms. (It's California, spring comes early!)

139. from writer Jennifer Dukes Lee:

"You. Matter. You are God's Masterpiece.

You were created anew in Christ Jesus,

so you can do the good things

he planned for you, long ago."

147. from the WhiteStone Publishing Facebook page, a song and melody I have often enjoyed:

SIMPLE GIFTS
'Tis the gift to be simple,'tis the gift to be free,'tis the gift to come downwhere we ought to be,and when we find ourselves in the place just right,'twill be in the valley of love and delight.When true simplicity is gainedto bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed,to turn, turn, will be our delighttill by turning, turning we come round right.~ EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SHAKER HYMN

Thankful Thursday: Joy Dare Week 7

Unlike the 1st week of February, this week has a lot of pictures! (I guess I was making up for lost time?!??)

119. Playing Ticket to Ride with cousins from far, far, away. (I have a pic for this, and I hope I can still extract it from an old phone.)

127. Pretty, sparkly things - a belated Christmas gift from a far-away friend!

127. A sweet and unexpected Valentine's Surprise that arrived in the mail.

As I write this post, it's February 16 and I've counted 138 gifts, so I'm still 3 behind schedule. Here's to counting some extra gifts this week!

Thankful Thursday: Joy Dare Week 6

I'm behind on my blogging, but still counting away! Here's some notes of thanks from the first week of February:

100. Reaching a count of 100 gifts, and appreciating the gift of a milestone reached.

103. Life Groups starting up again at church.

104. A date with my sweet nephew Charlie, and hearing his adorable voice from the backseat: "Thank  you, Auntie Rebo."

Oh, how my heart melts at that!

No pics this week, that definitely fell through the cracks. I've also been missing a few days now and then; I've lost some momentum. I'm trying to keep up with the count, catching up with extra gifts some days, but need to remind myself that this is important and not turn out the light by the bed before I write in my gifts journal.