Thank You Thursday.....(stolen idea from Special K!-hope it's okay...)

Thank you Thursday you ask?  What is this silliness? 

Well, it's a day to write you are thankful for.  Duh!  j/k  Seriously, it's so weird because I was going to write a thank you note today.  To my Lord. 

Thank You Lord in no specific prioritized order....for forgiving me; for Your love; for Your salvation; for Your healing; for Your company; for Your blessings; for all that You went through on the cross-all the humiliation, pain and anguish-all for me, for us!; for being able to freely praise and worship You; for the people in our lives; for the Holy Spirit and Your guidance; for Your convicting of our hearts; for Your understanding; for Your mercy; for Your grace; for Your Word; for preparing a place for us to live with You eternally; for Your hearing and answering of our prayers; for showing us part of Your glory through the beauty of the Earth....and SO much more that I can't think of right now!

After a "good" day yesterday of not shedding a tear about my Brandy girl.  I feel guilty.  So far so good again today, but I don't know how long that will last.  I have praise team practice tonight and will be singing praises to the One Who is taking care of her and it overwhelms me.  I KNOW that Jesus has her...my amazing Mother in Law sent me a beautiful email with a vision she had of Brandy sitting at the feet of my Grandma Hall next to Jesus holding our baby.  That brings me so much comfort!  Isn't that a beautiful picture?

I do miss her tremendously.  I went to a new Dr today.  Just to renew my thyroid medications and whatnot.  I was talking to her about it and she re-iterated that it is not silly to mourn the loss of a dog and to not let anyone make me feel inferior about that.  She really comforted me.  It's amazing who the Lord uses to send His comfort!  She said (as well as many friends) that I shouldn't feel guilty or silly, and I should take my time to grieve and not hold it in.  Otherwise it will fester and grow.  I think I'm doing that...I've been on vacation this week and have been doing a lot of reminicsing about her and our times together as a family.  She's so precious. 

I remembered some more things that I miss about her.  When Mike or I would cough or sneeze, she'd come over to us to make sure we were okay.  She was so sweet.  Although, I remembered a time right after we'd moved her after we were married and we went for a walk and I tripped and fell.  She came to sniff me for like a 1/2 a second and wanted to move on to her walk! haha!  I was like, "thanks a lot!"  haha...she must have figured I was fine.  :)  I miss her "helping me get ready".  She would stand in the doorway or even in the bathroom while I was doing my make up or hair, getting ready for work (Sunday's she slept in...she somehow knew it was Sunday I think..heehee-btw-I told her about Jesus a lot....I told her we were going to learn more about Him and what He did for us.....so I think she knew Him!).....I miss her standing there in the mirror.  Sometimes I even still see or hear her walking on the tile w/her nails up to me.  She didn't like it when we left.  But once we did, I think she liked it b/c she got her beauty sleep then!  :)  She always had to "seemingly" approve what I looked like before I left.  She'd follow me to my closet....stand right there while I dressed too.  It's so weird getting ready or picking out my clothes without her there.  I look for her still to make sure I don't step on her.  Even weirder that I don't have to worry about getting "dog" hair on me while I do so.  I wear black uniforms to work and that just didn't jive with a dog at home.  It was worth it.  Mike can't stand hair...he thinks it's gross which is why she spent most of her life outside...but he also thought it was worth it once Brandy came inside (which I snuck in and I knew he'd fall in love with the idea...).  He still doesn't like it though (dog hair I mean).  It took me a few days to vacuum after she left us because I didn't want to vacuum up "memories" of her hair.  But I did.  Our floors our hairless-but not memory-less.  We remember where her favorite spots to sit are.  Last night I sat in front of our TV cabinet-to practice some music for choir...she used to come up and stand by me and look at everything in there-almost as if she was picking out something to listen to.  She LOVED music.  If I were just listening to some stuff, sitting on the floor there in front of the cabinet, she'd lay by me sometimes.   I think we trained her to like music, I dunno.  The louder the better she'd sleep!  lol  Her favorite song was "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyes Peas.  One day I put that CD in and she fell asleep!  It never failed...every time we put on music or a loud action movie or something-she'd fall asleep.  We have a player piano and she loved that too.  If she were sleeping in the living room, I'd walk by the piano and just hit any key, her head would pop up.  It was funny.  At Christmas time, we have a "Clarice" stuffed animal that sings, "There's Always Tomorrow" from Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer that we set out and when we played that...she would give Clarice kisses all over and cry.  She loved Clarice.  She never played with toys...when she was little, she'd play with a milk jug and a rock.  Until I bought her "Mr. Blue".  It's this weird looking blue thing...that squeaks.  Everytime I squeaked it, she'd cry.  Until one day, she picked him up with her mouth and walked all over and wouldn't let me have him.  She NEVER did that.  I took all sorts of pictures b/c she'd never done this before and she was about 11 years old or so at the time!  Too funny.  Every time we squeaked Mr Blue, she'd cry and give him kisses too.  She also loved to hear me sing believe it or not.  I sang, "you are my sunshine" to her all the time.  Okay...that did it.  There goes my "no crying" streak.....

Gotta go....keep on goin' on my friends!
~Aim