That’s gratitude for ya.

I’m grateful that even though it seems the entire world economy is going to hell, and even though Calvin and I have lost our ASSES in our 401k accounts, and even though scary, scary things are happening – we are not upside-down in our home loan, we have enough money to pay our bills, and we even have a PLAN that will pay off our credit cards in relatively short order. We can’t go out and buy whatever we want whenever we want, and we can’t take grandiose vacations, but we can buy food and pay for electricity and afford gas for our truck.

I’m grateful that I can still call the home telephone number of my childhood and someone still picks up. It’s not Grammy, but it’s my uncle and we’re getting along much better than we did when I was a teenager. We even see eye to eye on a startling amount of topics. So whenever I’m homesick I can call that number and have a good conversation (in this morning’s case, nearly an hour and a half long!) and feel better afterwards.

I’m grateful for Calvin. No matter how crappy the world gets, as long as he and I are together it’s not as crappy as it could be. “Me and him against the world” is a frighteningly accurate idiom. I don’t know what I’d do, or how I’d do it, without him.

I’m grateful for food blogs. I have in the past couple of weeks made this (we had it last night and Calvin liked it!), these (I’ve made them a couple of times now and if you haven’t made them yet WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? GO NOW AND COOK.), and this (which Calvin did NOT like, but which I suspect anyone with a sophisticated palette would love, as I did. Humph.). In the near future I will be making this, this (similar to Grammy’s but necessitating the purchase of a tube pan which you can buy for me if ya wanna), and this (necessitating the purchase of a dutch oven which you can buy for me if ya wanna). I’m also grateful for my own food blog on which I have organized all of my own favorite recipes, making it handy to make this today (and if you haven’t made it yet WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? GO NOW AND COOK.).

I’m grateful that I’m strong enough, and healthy enough, to do thison a daily basis and have NOT YET DIED from it. Yet. I’m only on level one. But I can tell my endurance is improving. So I’m grateful that my days of being fit are NOT over. I’m also a teeny tiny bit grateful for Jillian Michaels. But only a teeny tiny bit.

Finally, I’m grateful to all of my readers, who make me laugh and commiserate with me and make me think and entertain me on a daily basis. I’m grateful to my fellow bloggers who ALSO make me laugh and commiserate with me and make me think and entertain me on a daily basis. I don’t remember what I did for entertainment or knowledge or useless trivia or funny videos before the Innernets, and I don’t remember how I related to people before I started blogging. Life, she is a funny thing.

So, guys. Tell me what you’re grateful for today.