“We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”
–J.K. Rowling
July has come and gone. I’m going to miss it, I will admit.
This week, if there can be a slight theme to my TToT, it would definitely be the innocence and imagination of children.
Plus, multiple birthday announcements to mention.
It’s been a week of cheesecake, mustard, and friendship. I am thankful for all these, but I’m not including them in my official list because I can only handle so many thankfuls.
🙂
Happy Cheesecake/Friendship/Mustard Day to all of you, before I forget to wish it.
For time spent with my brother.
He shared a song with me which he and a group of other Music Industry Arts students had to perform for the class.
He did one of the synthe parts, a girl in the group sang the words, and he wrote a part for the end of a cover they did called Kids by MGMT.
Funnily, I had that exact song in my head. You know what it’s like to have a particular song stuck in your head, so much so to where you can’t help singing/humming it to yourself, over and over again?
Well, that is the exact one he and his classmates chose. They were going to choose Taylor Swift’s Blank Space, but another group chose that one first. I like both.
For the songs he shows me, for his pancakes with Ketchup, and for his support and the fun we have, so much so that time seems to fly by.
For guest posts and the ability to write them for other blogs, as well as having them on mine from time to time.
It’s a great way to get my writing out there. I had two out this week.
Well, one,
Monday Inspirations: Color, Light, and Magic – guest post by Kerry Kijewski,
but the other was technically posted a few weeks ago.
Original Bunker Punks: Triskaidekaphobia,
which I did not realize had been posted right after I’d been contacted, a few weeks ago now.
Thanks, again, to both these blogs for the chance to showcase my writing to your audiences.
For another book released, discovered years after the fact.
Dr Seuss’s “What Pet Should I Get?” came out this week.
This children’s author had such a rich vocabulary and rhyming ability. It was magic how he could string words together, in a way that would totally captivate a child into wanting to learn to read.
If it’s a good book, anyone will read it. I’m totally unashamed about still reading things I loved in my childhood.”
–J.K. Rowling
For the ability to read myself.
I know literacy is a big problem in the world today, in many places, and I am thankful I have the ability. I don’t know where I would be without words and books.
For ice cream, but not just any old ice cream. I am thankful for soft ice cream. It is so much better and there is this little place (Bartley’s Dairy Bar) in my town. It makes the best, smoothest, creamiest soft ice cream around. I got their Salted Caramel Sundae.
MMMMM.
Bartley’s Dairy Bar – Facebook
For the birth of my greatest literary influence: J.K. Rowling.
Rowling once said about juggling writing and her family:
My youngest child asked me the other day, “Mummy, if you had to choose between us and writing, what would you choose?”
And I said, “well I would choose you but I would be very, very grumpy.”
Get to Know J.K. Rowling with 50 Quotes
It’s the big 50 for Rowling and she has achieved something, in those 50 years, that most of us will only ever dream of.
For the birth also of her greatest literary hero, the one that gave me back an imagination that I hadn’t even realized I missed so much:
Happy 35th birthday, Harry Potter!
For the blue moon the other night. I love everything about the moon. It’s so magical and wonderful, so remote and mysterious. It inspires me to want to write and to write well.
Okay, so I have no stunning photos of what it looked like in the sky. Truthfully, I’m glad it isn’t actually blue because I wouldn’t be able to see that if it were anyway. (Feel free to describe how it looked to you, if you saw it this time. I love to hear about it and to imagine it.)
I am thankful for the fact that I can see the moon at all. There are those who are blind, more so than me, who have never seen the moon.
When it’s full it does help me see it better, when I am able to locate it. Often it appears as a street light to my very limited sight. that’s why living in town can make it hard to spot.
I used to recognize it, as we were driving, as the one light that did not move as we drove.
🙂
I have never seen the stars and that sometimes makes me sad, but you can’t have everything. That is why I thought it was interesting when a friend posted this on Facebook:
How can blind people “watch” fireworks?
I can still see fireworks somewhat, can still see the moon’s brightness, and so that’s clearly something to be grateful and thankful for and to never take for granted.
For this past year with my little Lu.
I sometimes regret the sort of snap decision I made to get him that day, with the trouble he sometimes likes to cause me, but Im glad I now have him. I love my not so little anymore kitten.
At what age does he become not a kitten but a cat anyway?
I named him Lumos, a term from the Harry Potter universe, and speaking of…
Lumos is the spell to ignite the tip of a magic wand with light. Lumos brought light into my life when it felt at its darkest and he still is.
For these last two years.
It has been exactly two years since my family were given the gift of our little superhero/Bubble Guppy, depending on the day or time.
I am thankful that I have my nephew in my life. He is smart beyond words and growing smarter by the day. His enthusiasm is infectious. I can’t help feeling it whenever I am around him.
His big sister is the greatest ally, as siblings should be, and his parents are going to continue to nurture his spirit and his sweetness.
Happy Birthday Buddy!
Okay, so I believe that was a little more than Ten Things of Thankful, but so what if it was? I felt like being loose with the number this week.
🙂
Note: the following song is the original version of the one my brother and his group covered in class.
“Those who write for children, or at least those who write best for children, are not childlike or immature, but they do remember with sometimes painful intensity both what it was to be small and confused and how wonderful was that fierce joy in in the moment that can become so elusive in later life.”
–J.K. Rowling
Whether it’s a musical group, books written for, or the kids themselves, I am grateful and thankful for all things “kids” in my life.
July was a great month, full of the unexpected and memories made and August is Nephew Birthday Month in my family. That makes this coming month one of the best there ever was.
The kids in my life are what make life so sweet. Well, them and soft ice cream of course.
Her Headache 
