My Sugar House Life: Weekly gratitude in photos

You know what my favorite part of prayer is? Saying thanks. Over the years, I've struggled with some of the other aspects of prayer. Does it work? Is God listening? Wouldn't he already know, far better than me, what my needs are anyway even if he is listening?

The one part of prayer I have never struggled with is saying thanks because I appreciate the gratitude it cultivates and the power of taking time everyday to recognize the good in my life. I love Aidan's prayers for the same reason, and because it gives me a glimpse into what he values as well.

Cheesy, but true.

I'm going to try something new on the blog, a weekly gratitude journal to capture things for which I'm thankful, hopefully with accompanying photos from my phone. Here are some of the things I've been grateful for this week:

1. Halloween decorations

Those who know me well, know that I am not a Halloween person. Perhaps because my tastes veer to the warm, fuzzy, and sentimental, I've always viewed Halloween as a speed bump to Christmas. For some reason -- and I'm assuming it has something to do with actually having this season called "fall" -- I love Halloween in Utah.

My small nod to Halloween. Next year will be better.

Cool decorations on my street

Technicolor trees in Sugar House

Aidan getting ready to be Steve from Minecraft

2. My two-mom Costco membership

I'm sure many of you know that Costco allows two people per Costco membership, because they assume each membership is for a typical two-person, non-plural marriage. And most of us blindly sign our partner on as the "other" person on our membership.

Well recently, my Costco membership ran out and my next door neighbor Christine allowed me to be her other person on her membership and you know what? IT IS BRILLIANT. In any given household, it's probably one person who does 95% of the Costco runs, which of course creates one superfluous cardholder for every active cardholder. When two moms become partners on a Costco account, not only do you have a Costco buddy, your Costco membership reaches maximal productivity. Brilliant.

My Costco wife with baby Betty

3. Dinner parties

I have about a party a month at Casa de Cummings. This month I volunteered to host a Unitarian Dinner and Dialogue party at my house for eleven strangers. Never hosted a dinner party for people you've never met? I highly recommend it. I imagine it could just as easily go terribly wrong, but my dinner party had a great mix of people, food, and spirited conversation. The dinner started at 6:00 and didn't end until almost midnight.

When you need a table for 12 in my house you get two tables for six.

One caveat though. If you find yourself hosting a Unitarian potluck, make sure there are dishes coming that are vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, and organic and label them accordingly. Unitarians are incredibly finicky eaters.

4. Hand-written cards

But they do send hand-written thank you's for hosting dinner. Or at least two of them do. A few days after the dinner, two of my guests sent this lovely hand-written card. Those are so rare nowadays, it felt like receiving a dozen roses.

Addresses obscured for the stalky among you

5. Lenore is moving back!

If you've read past posts you know that Wilson Avenue had a heartbreaking loss back in August. Lenore moved to the creepy land of beige down south and as we know, unicorns don't do well in taupe.

It took three whole months, but she's moving back! Haha. Not even an entire school semester. Lenore & Co. bought a house three blocks east of us (which makes her three blocks fancier) and hopefully will be back by Halloween, which means our kids did not miss a celebrating a single meaningful holiday while they were away.

And she had her baby!

Who I get to hold all the time!

6. Learning HTML

Learning something new all the time is super important to me. Some people look back at high school or college and think, "Man, I knew so much stuff back then." I never want to be that person.

Lately, I've started learning HTML so that I can create my own web pages. HTML is the language for creating web documents but it also gives me the ability to go into my blogger code and make my text red or blue, italicized or bold, underlined or ~~crossed out~~. Of course, I can do those things by pressing those little buttons in the backend of Blogger as well, but it makes me feel superior that I can now hardcode those things as well, should those buttons cease to exist.

HTML from this blog post

7. Aidan's new hobby

My son is so quirky. I always pictured my nine-year old boy begging to play soccer or football. But what does my son want to do? Archery. That's right. Archery. He got a taste for it at summer camp and now he can't get enough.

Aidan at the range

Just cause...you know...archery

8. My new friend Jessica

Some friendships start with a bang. You meet one day and all of a sudden you're best friends. I would put both Christine and Lenore in that camp. Maybe it's because you recognize a person's awesomeness instantly or because you move from a new state and need friends. Whatever the case, some friendships ignite instantly.

Others, however, are a slow burn. I met Jessica pretty much right after I met Lenore over a year ago, but probably because I thought of her as Lenore's friend, I never really saw her unless Lenore was hosting something or Lenore invited both of us to go somewhere.

Jessica, me, Lenore almost a year ago

But over the year of here and there conversations, I've realized something. I want Jessica as my friend too. She's totally sweet and awesome, and it's silly to wait for us to incidentally end up at the same events to hang out. So Jessica, if you are reading this I am telegraphing a not so subtle message: LET'S BE FRIENDS!