Saint Myra

Obviously, it's the day before Thanksgiving.  Obviously, I'm counting my blessings.  Isn't that the standard course of things as Thanksgiving approaches?  I noticed alot of people have been posting on Facebook the things for which they are thankful on a regular basis.

I'm a regular thanks-giver though, so relegating it to just Thanksgiving seems a bit limited.  While I like to believe (although I'm not sure this is really true) that I don't have a lot of hard and fast life rules, I'm a firm believer in the half-full cup.  When I say firm believer, I mean it like exercise -- you have to really practice it to achieve optimal benefits.  Actually, it's one of the reasons I blog regularly and do my best to keep the tone upbeat.  It's not that life isn't always perfect but by golly, it's pretty darn good.  Sometimes, I even keep a list  of things I love.  My rule for the list is that it has to be specific things.  I can't write things like my husband or children* because that's too easy although I do have Jack Russell Terriers on the list which seems like cheating because how can you not love JRTs?  They're so cute and funny (I have one sitting on my lap right now as a matter of fact.  Did you know I read somewhere that Jack Russells aren't lap dogs?  HA.  hahahaha.  Clearly, that person didn't have a Jack Russell.  But I digress).  Mary Rollins has started doing this too.  It was a writing prompt -- write a list of 100 things you love -- and she will occasionally tell me something she added to the list.  We have both far exceeded the requisite one hundred.

Back to being thankful and living in gratitude.  I was thinking this morning in the quietness of my house that currently contains three sleeping thirteen year old boys how much I love my cleaning lady.  She came yesterday and did her magic.  Saint Myra, as I commonly refer to her, arrives every other week.  The night before her arrival is one of frantic straightening and I announce repeatedly to my children in a Touret's syndrome kind of litany, "Myra comes tomorrow," "The cleaning lady comes tomorrow," "Tomorrow's a Myra day" in the hopes that they (Will in particular) will straighten their rooms and bathrooms so that Myra's ministrations can have an even greater impact.  In their heads, I know what they are thinking, "Isn't it Myra's job to clean my room?"  But alas my darlings, Myra cleans and you must straighten so that Myra can do her job.  I was confused by that as a child myself in the brief periods that we had cleaning ladies. 

As difficult as the Monday night hurried, scurried decluttering for our Tuesday visit is, it's nice to put away the detritus that has gathered on the coffee table and counters over the last two week that no one has had the motivation to return to their rightful places.  And, it's lovely to come home to the slightly antiseptic Pine-sol smell that follows in her wake.  Saint Myra has a gift and I'm terribly grateful to her for she is far cheaper in the long run than marriage counseling, divorce or psychotherapy.   In addition to believing in the half-full cup, I also believe in the peace of a relatively clean home.  To note, I used to think that only boring, uncreative people had clean homes...

So on my ever-growing list of things I love, today I'm grateful for Saint Myra.  And, grateful for our very comfortable home at which we plan to stay, just our little family, on Thanksgiving day.



*it is perfectly acceptable to put children/husband-related things that they do you especially like.  For example, I love that Marc does my taxes...