Just sitting here.....

I'm sitting on the couch at 3:52 in the afternoon. The kids and my husband are off in my room playing some game on the PS3. I'm pretty sure I can hear the laundry calling out my name every once in a while. It is cold and rainy outside so the house is darker than normal. I'm curled up with a blanket off of my 4 year old's bed. In less than 2 days it will be 2010. It seemed like when I was a teenager - in THE 80's (gasp) - the thought of 2010 brought on images of flying cars and everything made of metal for some reason. Now here we are upon it and while technology has changed the way we talk on the phone and use computers, not much else has changed. My kids are getting older with every passing minute (heck, aren't we all!) and it's hard to imagine that in less than 4 years my oldest one - my first born - will be graduating high school and moving on to college somewhere, hopefully! By the time my 4 year old reaches high school, it's highly possible I could be a grandmother. It didn't seem that long ago I was just starting out my life with my husband. Now we've been married 18 years - barely sometimes, but we made it. But I'm just sitting here knowing that I have the Christmas stuff to take down and put away and knowing that I have some bathrooms that need to be cleaned and knowing that I have some floors to be swept. But I also know that come Monday when I head back to work from my long New Year's weekend, I'll look back and wish I had taken some down time to just sit and reflect on everything I have been blessed with. It's so easy these days to look at what everyone else has and wish my house was a little bigger or my car was a little nicer, but I also know that God has given me so much that I don't deserve. I was given 3 beautiful children - all whom have had their own health problems in their lives - but who are all healthy today. I try to think how I would feel if I was the mother of the 6 year old killed on I10 in a car wreck yesterday morning or if I was the mother of a cancer patient down in the medical center right now watching her child fight for his life or if I was the mother of a missing child not knowing where they were or who was doing what to them but knowing that they wished their mom could find them. But all I can do is pray for those mothers and thank God right now that my 3 children - none who are aspiring athletes or who make the best grades in their class - but they are alive and healthy and are at home with me. Those are things I need to dwell on when I am wanting more than what I have been given. So I'm just sitting here.....being thankful for what I have.