It's that time of year again...

....when everyone counts their blessings and feels the urge to list them and share with every acquaintance/passerby/FaceBook friend/family member/blogger/etc. 

I certainly look at my life with no small amount of gratitude and joy.  But my contrary heart gets absolutely balky when the entire world is urging me to share what I'm grateful for. It's the assignment of the week...EVERYWHERE!  Makes me cranky.  And obtuse.  And stubborn.

You really want to know? REALLY?

Alright.

But I must warn you....it's not a warm, fuzzy, pull the kids in close and remember the moment sort of list...

(Bulletpoints, because they are efficient.  And one of my readers lives and dies by them.  Today looks like a "lives" day...)

• Tweezers.  Yes, you read that right.  As women age, they get...whiskers, sort of.  (Well, they DO!)  And without tweezers, we'd look like Wolfman Jack.  Or maybe the guy from ZZ Top.  I'm truly grateful for these little tools.  And now, so are you.
• Paper towels.  I don't even want to contemplate how life would be without these precious things.  And yes, I know I'm killing trees by the hundreds of acres, everytime I use them.  I can live with that. 
• A friend that commented on my skinny butt with true sincerity, right at the moment I was ready to burst into tears over a bookkeeping error that is really going to hurt.  I completely forgive her for telling me earlier in the year that I was getting weird-ER.
• Football. That's all I have to say on that point.
• Multiple people who have taken on the role of my parents and family. Karen Yost (one of my mothers) MADE me watch "While You Were Sleeping" for one line..."Lucy! You're BORN into a family.  You don't just join them, like the Marines!"  She said I did that.  I don't know what's worse, that I joined their family or that they put up such a feeble fight.  But I love my families...all of them.
• Whipping cream...the whole fat kind.  The kind that actually makes a plopping sound as you pour it in the coffee cup.  When you whip it up, it's love on a spoon.  *sigh...*
•  Bacon.
• (I'll get away from food, now, or the list would start becoming all sentimental and sappy...)  Maggie's funny people pictures that we mustn't laugh at and Angus's kitten traps. And their "true" stories about dinosaur bones that they just found over the hill! (Dinosaurs and cows apparently had very similar structural make-ups. This is a scientific wonder that not many outside the family know about.)
• Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, Cowboying with Earl and For Better or Worse.  Gosh, those are funny comics! I see my world everyday, there. 
• CD's....those magical little discs that scratch the minute you break the seal on the package.  I couldn't cope without them.  Pat Green, my friend, I'm sure you're going to hunt me down and have me arrested, because I've copied Wave On Wave for multiple people, but get this: they're now fans, too, and buy their own.  Please forgive me.   

I have more, but this should fulfill the requirements on the blog challenge.  And the desperate pleas of my friends who want me to list what I'm grateful for.  Bet they don't ask for that next Thanksgiving....