Count Your Blessings Monday!!

Here is an opportunity for all of us to give thanks unto the Lord for a blessing in our lives. If you would like to take part great. If not that is OK too. If you would like to share your blessing, just leave it in the comments. If you want to use the picture above and list a blessing on your own site, then leave a URL to your site in the comments. There is no pressure here. I just know that I am incredibly blessed and I would like to share that and give thanks to Him who all blessing come from. This is a way that we can encourage one another. I know that I am often encouraged when someone shares a blessing with me. I think that many times we forget that it is a blessing to be able to breath, to get out of bed, to hold a baby... Share your blessings with us. We can share so many other things.... special gifts, recipes, let's take the time to share how God has blessed us!!

Today, I am thankful for the blessings of a warm house.  It is currently about 17° outside.  This house tends to be colder because it has lots of design flaws.  :)  We are slowly fixing them.  This year through adding a pantry door with plastic on it and putting a door on the laundry area, the house is staying warmer.  Our stove is working great and has been our only source of heat for the last 12 years.

It provides a warm place to sit and read my Bible or knit.  It also saves us on propane.  Saturday, I cooked a chicken so I could make Crock Pot Chicken Enchiladas for Sunday.  I just put the pan with the chicken on this stove and it cooked all day.  As you can see in the picture above, I put my mug of tea on a trivet on the stove and it keeps it warm for me.  

My husband makes sure we have wood to burn and he brings in plenty of wood each day for me to feed the fire.  The Wonderful Neighbor young man has helped Michael on several occasions to cut up wood drug out of our woods.  We have had men from our church go out and cut wood and bring us truck loads, and they even split and stacked them.  During the winter months, Michael reads out loud while I knit.  We are reading Joel Salatin's newest book, Folks, This Ain't Normal.  

One of the things he talks about in the book is how young people today sit around and watch movies or play on their computers or iPhones.  He talks about the rights of passage for young men of another era.  One of those was cutting wood to keep the family home warm.  It was more than just going down and chopping down trees.  You had to know which trees to cut, which wood burned the hottest and the longest, etc.  It was a true skill and one that you normally did with another person so you had times of fellowship.  He talked about the good feeling of riding back on a huge load of firewood.  It was good exercise and they felt like they had contributed to their family and home.  

I never want to take for granted the hard work and dedication it takes for the men of the family to supply their home with enough firewood to keep a fire going.  I am very grateful to the Lord for my husband and his willingness to do this and also for the help from others he receives.  It is so much nicer for him when someone is working side by side with him.  

What are YOU thankful for?