On this day, I am thankful beyond belief for some of the fantastic people that I have in my life. After posting my last post, I felt hesitant to share it with people. I was scared of how people would respond to my call for help. I was afraid that they would judge me. I was silly.

I had the most incredible outpouring of support from friends; some that I've known forever and some that I've known only a couple of weeks. In fact, I am super excited to let you all know that we have had a laptop donated! I cannot begin to thank the generous soul who is donating it enough.

On top of that, two of my Mamavation sistas are running a giveaway to help raise money for any other items that he will need. Any money raised about and beyond what we need will be donated to March of Dimes. As you may remember, Ben was a preemie (and heck, we induced Roger 2 weeks early!) so this is a charity that is close to my heart.

So, if you would like to get involved in helping our family out, please go through the giveaway. The girls are giving away a prize pack that includes:

• Blog transfer to a self-hosted WordPress site or WordPress installation if you don’t already have a blog
• Custom domain name registration for 1 yr if you don’t already have one
• Blog hosting for 1 yr if you don’t already have hosting
• Custom blog design or re-design including header and button (Greta is a kick-butt designer)
• Standard plugin set-up: Comment spam protection, tweet this, facebook like etc. – we’ll work with you to determine which plugins you need.

Entries are $5 each. All you have to do is make a donation through the paypal button here or on their blog and then leave a comment with your paypal confirmation number.

Thank you again to all of the generous souls who are helping out my family and my son. You cannot begin to understand what it does to a mother's heart to know that her son won't have to struggle on without these tools. I don't care what anyone says, generosity and big hearts are more than alive and out there.



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I bet everyone was thinking I would forget to write this post, but no, I hadn't. I think I was just waiting for the right time to write it. Tonight seems like the perfect night. I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself that Peter gave Ben Red Lobster and Guitar Hero 5 for his birthday and all I have for him is a cd and maybe some $5 pizza from Little Caesars. Then, Justin called me and reminded me how many times Ben asked for that cd and how much he loves the time that I give him. He's right. Even though I feel bad that I can't give him everything he asks for, I give him things that he will remember for the rest of his life. He'll remember Mom's Wow board where I post his hard work. He'll remember our movie nights and how mom tucked him in every night.

So, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I'm going to focus on the good things in my life and one ...or half a dozen of those wonderful people in my life. As a lot of you know, I'm not working a full time job right now and it was looking as if Christmas was going to be impossible this past year. I posted something here to my blog and I asked on my favorite yahoogroup how much money I could get if I sold my Pazzles. I was willing to give it up if it meant giving my boys a good Christmas.

Well, I didn't have to sell it. Six different people/groups stepped up and prevented that. I was totally blown away by their generosity and the love that they shared with us in a year where I know that money was tight for so many people. People can be totally amazing if you only give them a chance. Even now, almost a month later, I'm totally in awe of these people.

So, to Klo who sent not just my boys, but me as well gift cards, thank you. We decided, as a family, to add them to our Wii fund. We've been saving for a long time and your addition was exciting for us.

To Corinna, who along with her husband, sent the boys books and movies, thank you.

To Jim, who bought our family a gift package to the "local" theatre, thank you! We went to see Alvin & The Chimpunks, the Squeakuel right after Christmas and loved it. The gift card covered everything for all of us to go.

To Justin, who sent us some money to buy special gifts, thank you.

And last, but certainly not least, to Valerie, a woman who I have never met for the incredible gift of money that you sent to us. I have never been so incredibly touched by a stranger. She somehow came across this blog and based just on what she read here, she sent us an incredible gift.

I know I just said last, but I do want to extend one more thank you out there. To the people who donate to Toy for Tots or to the Salvation Army toy drive, I want to thank all of you. We were one of the families that benefited from that this year.

Like I said, the generosity of people amazes me and humbles me. I've worked at teaching my children the joy that can come from giving to others. They don't see a Salvation Army red bucket without asking me for change because in their words, "they help people who need help." Little did they know that those people were us this year. I've heard it said "when your hand is open to give, it is also open to receive" and it seems that is exactly what happened.

Holy cow! I just prevented the house from burning down! Ok, it might not be that dramatic, but it sure scared me. I kept smelling something burning but couldn't figure out what it was. I figured it must be the neighbor burning wood or something. Except, it wasn't! I happened to turn around from where I was sitting on the couch and noticed that my lamp was tipped over. Not only was it tipped over, but it was on and the bare bulb (my lampshade broke and I haven't had the money to replace it) was leaning against a suede pillow! The burning smell was where it was scorching the pillow! Thank god I turned around when I did. The pillow has a large scorched spot and had I not noticed it, it could have caught fire. How terrifying is that?

Know what I'm doing for me today? I'm taking a few deep breathes and counting my blessings. I sometimes spend too much time dwelling on the negative, like not enough money, not enough time with my boys, etc etc. So today, I'm going to focus on the positives...I have a lovely home, food in our cupboards, two incredible boys, 3 cats who keep me company and love on me and make me laugh with their antics, books to read, movies to watch, decent health and the list could go on and on...I really am a lucky girl.

What are all of you doing for you today? What are you thankful for?