Ahh, the simple pleasures

Lately I've been finding myself thankful for little things, like:

• Cheesecake Factory's frozen Oreo cheesecake on special for only $0.81 at Sam's Club last week (no, not just a single slice - the whole cheesecake!). Lee got two, and when I went back an hour later to get more, they were cleared out!
• Waking up with minimal joint pain. My medication is doing its job. My right thumb is still swollen and stiff and the pain in my let foot is hit or miss, but I am no longer in constant, excruciating pain.
• Realizing that there's a Veggie Tales we can watch for free on hulu.com (a legal website where you can stream mostly NBC shows for free). Jocelyn loves Veggie Tales, and they have the Jonah movie!
• Olympic coverage. I love the Olympics, and I've always loved watching the swimming. Given that Phelps is the boy wonder of these games, I'm getting to watch lots o' swimming.
• Jocelyn sleeping late in the morning. It's nice to get some things done before she's up or - on those mornings after late night Olympics-watching - to sleep in with her!
• Friends to hang out at the pool with.
• Enjoying this stage in Jocelyn's life. She's old enough to come back with matching shoes when I tell her, "Go find your shoes," in the morning, and she has enough stamina to take a mile-long walk with me around the neighborhood. (Granted, today I took a walk, and she mostly took a ride as I carried her a lot of the loop.) She likes to hold my hand when she walks or runs. One of her favorite games is for me to stand at one end of the driveway and her to stand at the other end and then we run toward each other, hug when we meet in the middle, and then return to our starting points and begin all over again. She refuses to play this game with Lee; it's strictly a Mommy-Jocelyn game. Every so often she'll fake me out and pass me instead of hugging, and she thinks that's hilarious! She finds wonder in simple things, like the fact that she can flip a switch and make the kitchen light up, and it's just so fun to watch her discover the world.
• Having the Wiggles dilemma I posted about earlier today. My options aren't bad; either we sell the tickets (which were free to us) for about $150, or we go to a show for free. A win-win either way!
• Playing with our three cats. They love attention, and they're very sweet!
• Entering Jocelyn's room after nap time to find her playing peek-a-boo with her stuffed animals. I caught her with her blanket on her head, pulling it off and yelling "Boo!" to her stuffed dragon. She was thrilled to realize Mommy was there too!
• Having a packed closet of clothes for Jocelyn, all that have been given to us by our friends the Wilcoxes. I think I've bought ten outfits at the most for Jocelyn.
• Band-Aids. Jocelyn gets a new scab on her knee every day since she runs and plays hard ... which means she falls hard.
• Being a wife and mom. I'm finding a lot of pleasure in the daily-ness of life, the cooking, cleaning, playing, running errands, hanging out, and so on. I'm finding myself very content lately in all the little moments. I know being a wife and mom isn't a little thing (and I started this post talking about being "thankful for the little things"), but I don't always stop and think about how thankful I am, so I'm including it in the list anyway!

I could go on, but suffice it to say that God is good and we are blessed!