Gratitude Days 27-29

Ack, so another few days have gone by without me posting my Gratitude List.  I've only got a few more days, which will be somewhat of a relief because life is, frankly, busy, and being required to write every night has been a pain.  Anyway, here's my list for today, related to events from the past few days:

1) I'm grateful for good friends who bring us Christmas goodies.  Even though my hypoglycemic wife can't eat any of it, I sure do appreciate it!  And she does appreciate the sentiment, even if not the goodies.
2) I'm grateful that my children have a great piano teacher that cares about them and encourages them and, the meanie, forces them to have bi-yearly recitals to show off what they've been learning.  Without those, I'm not sure they would learn anything at all!
3) I'm grateful for the good people that work for me.  I lead a small team of software developers -- one of many of the duties that I do at work -- and each one of them is a reliable, responsible, and effective worker.  A few years back, when I was assembling my team, I was throwing the dice looking for a few good programmers, and the team that I have is awesome.
4) I'm grateful that my oldest son has finals right now.  He hates studying, but my wife and I are having a wonderful time torturing him.  We're so glad that he's being forced to be responsible with his schooling and take things seriously.
5) Related to this, I'm grateful that my wife is such a great teacher.  She has bachelors degrees in elementary education and special education, and even though she's never used those degrees in a professional setting, I can honestly say that whatever measure of success my children have had in school is a direct reflection of her amazing influence.  Right now she's drilling my oldest son on the structure of the federal government and how certain states rights are limited.  Awesome.
6) I'm grateful for Christmas.  I think I said something about this before, but my previous item was about the holiday season.  I really am grateful for Christmas itself, and how it is an opportunity to remember the great gift of the Savior and all the amazing things he has done for us.
7) I'm grateful for the U.S. Postal Service.  I know there's lots of people that want to do away with it, but I appreciate the fact that I can send a letter for a reasonable price and that mail is delivered to me reliably.  At this time of year, we use this service quite a bit exchanging Christmas cards and the like, and I am grateful that we can count on them.
8) I'm grateful for Christmas cards.  We take all the ones we get in the mail and tape them to the back of our front door.  This has been a tradition that I got from my parents, and it is a wonderful thing to see, at a glance, many of the wonderful people that we have crossed paths with in this life and who, at least for this one time of year, think about us and we about them and how they are doing.  Despite the evident cost savings that come from sending digital "cards", I hope that social inertia keeps people sending physical cards around.
9) I'm grateful for my health insurance which I get through my work.  I hate unexpected bills, and my HMO keeps me from getting nasty unexpected bills in the mail at random times.  The fact that my wife and I can go and randomly visit the doctor for various purposes (including getting physicals and blood work done for our adoption efforts) and never worry about the overall cost to us (okay, I admit that I detest paying out for co-pays) is something that I actually do think about and appreciate.

So, that's it for tonight!  2 more nights to go!