Thankful Thursday

I couldn't wait for this morning to come, so I'll just get right into it!

Today I am thankful for:

• My wonderful, sweet, thoughtful & amazing husband
• Free Cycle/Full Circle
• Blessings that God gives us - just because
• My "new" patio swing!

Now for a little background! We are signed up with our city's Free Cycle (in our city it's called Full Circle). It's an internet-based "organization" with which people can post "Wanted" and "Offer" ads. All items must be given & received for free. The idea is to keep as much stuff out of the land fill as possible.

We have received a couple items already through Full Circle (click here to read about those). This past spring/early summer, I posted an ad on Full Circle requesting a patio swing. Because of the reaction my skin gets when it's exposed to the sun, I wanted to have a patio swing with an awning so that I could sit on it in the backyard, keep an eye on the kids and not get itchy in the process. I didn't receive any responses at that time.

Yesterday, someone was offering a patio swing that needs a little repair to the cushion & awning material. I forwarded the e-mail to Jeremy asking what he thought. He quickly dismissed it as not a good idea because of the repairs that would need to be made to the fabric. But I didn't want to give up that easily so I e-mailed the man back, asking if the swing was structurally sound. I never received a response back and the next thing I knew, the man had posted an e-mail stating "the patio swing has been taken".

My practical side said, "Oh well, maybe next time!" And that was the end of it. Or so I thought!

My wonderful, amazing, thoughtful, sweet...did I mention amazing?!...husband had taken matters into his own hands. With a couple of loving white lies (okay - they were rather blatant lies), he e-mailed the man himself and said he would love to take it as a surprise for his wife (me!). The man was concerned because I had already e-mailed him asking questions about it. So Jeremy (he's so smart) suggested the man (who happens to be a Christian!) send out an e-mail stating that the item had been taken. So that's what the man did; that's the e-mail I received which led me to believe that I had lost out on this opportunity for good.

Well, the next part of the story is pretty cool. Our next door neighbors were receiving some "new to them" furniture from their friends and we were taking our neighbors "finished with" furniture. As a stipulation (with a smile), our neighbor said we could have their funiture if Jeremy brought a truck home from his work to help them pick up their "new" stuff. So of course Jeremy obliged! He helped bring their old furniture over to our garage/rec room (it looks amazing now, by the way) then helped to pick up their "new" furniture. After all of this work, Jeremy told me that our neighbors' friend, Ian, needed help moving a couple things, so Jeremy had to go back out. No problem, I thought! Here's a great opportunity for Jeremy to connect with more non-Christians!

As it turns out, Ian didn't need help with anything. Jeremy took advantage of having a truck from his work and went to pick up the afore mentioned patio swing! He very quietly brought each cushion and piece up the back stairs onto our back deck. I was oblivious to the whole ordeal. When it came to moving the main frame, Jeremy enlisted the help of our new tennant. Together they quietly snuck it up the stairs and set the whole thing up.

I was sitting in the living room flipping through channels on the TV when Jeremy walked in. I asked how it had gone helping Ian. He said that it went well...there was some extra stuff on the back deck. What?! What extra stuff? Don't we already have enough furniture? Okay, I'll come see what's on the deck.

This is what I saw (well, actually I could barely see it because it was dark out and we don't have any lights on our back deck):

My FREE new-to-me patio swing!

For other Thankful hearts, visit Iris at Sting My Heart.