It is Thursday once more, so it is time to reflect on the things you are thankful for this week. Today’s list includes…

No migraines for a few weeks! This is probably tempting fate to say this, but all I’ve had for a few weeks are the usual daily headaches with a few bad ones thrown in.. no migraines, woo! I’ve had to take low/medium doses of co codamol but no big dope-myself-up-&-pass-out-then-deal-with-unpleasant-side-effects has been required, so yay!

My husband – He bought me chocolate, took my birthday gift card spending, and has been cooking me yummy meals all week. I love him (and so I should, he is my husband!). A moment of appreciation for my lovely jubbily husband who brings me coffee in bed every morning!

The trip to Bristol at the weekend – meeting Hayleyat last was fab, as I was disappointed I missed the UK Lady Bloggers meetup! It was a great weekend and I love the chance to unwind, relax, enjoy myself, and stop stressing!

Reading books – I’ve been taking some time out over the last few weeks, to curl up & read a book or two. I love reading and it’s nice to have a chance to just chill out with a book. I’ve been using Stanza on my iPhone to read in bed, so I don’t have to keep James up with having the light on. I loved the new books by Katie Fforde & Sophie Kinsella, which I had for my birthday.. I will post my attempts at reviews sometime, I hope!

Veronica Mars – I’ve recently introduced James to the wonderful tv show that is/was Veronica Mars & he loves it! We’ve watched the entirety of Season 1 so far and he’s looking forward to getting stuck in to Season 2. I discovered VM while I was at university, but it has sadly been cancelled since then – though there are rumours of a film being made some time!

photo credit: Vanessa Pike-Russell

Also on the making me smile list today: Homily being hilarious and chewing everything she can find that tastes like food (James doesn’t find it so funny!), plans to get an iPhone 3GS next week, getting sedated making dental treatment easy peasy, skips, buying cheap as chips jewellery making supplies of ebay, updating my 101 in 1001 list (and crossing some things off!), writing letters (newstationery!), and evenings curled up with my husband playing sims3/relaxing/watching tv/laughing together.

I have neglected this weekly meme for too long, but today is a good day so I am in the mood to love things!

My birthday – It’s my birthday on Saturday, woohoo! I’m having a BBQ with some of my friends in the evening, which (weather permitting) should be great fun! James & I are going to head to ASDA in the morning & load up with yummy supplies. Presents & cards have started arriving at the house, but I am being good and putting them to one side to save for Saturday afternoon (James is doing some last minute shopping in the morning)!

Our bedroom – we have finished decorating and I love love love it! We finished painting the walls & woodwork white over Sunday/Monday evening. Tuesday evening was spent painting the walls blue & last night we put all the furniture into it’s new places, and putting up some shelving, that kind of thing. It’s just such a nice room now, I know I will be happy to go & curl up there to read & relax much more than I used to. Especially since we moved a lot of our books in there (though there are still quite a few in other rooms!).

Half day tomorrow – I decided to take tomorrow afternoon off so I could finish sorting things out now the decorating of the two bedrooms is finished. So I will bring in cakes in the morning (for my bday), and then I have a annoying meeting about my headaches (which hopefully won’t ruin my day / weekend / birthday celebrations) and then I get to go home at lunchtime, woohoo. I get to be all OCD and organisational all on my own. Last night I spent ages sorting out my books into genres & authors so all my favourites are easy to find. And now over the next few days I get to be all organisey and sort out the spare room, bathroom & change things around downstairs a little bit too.

Harry Potter - I am going to see the new HP film tomorrow with Gayle & James, with a stop at Frankie & Benny’s first to eat! I haven’t been to F&B or to the cinema for ageees ‘cos our finances have been so bad this year, so it’s lovely to have a treat like this. Sort of an early birthday outing :-). Trivia fun: James & I’s first lunch as a married couple was at Frankie & Benny’s in Selly Oak because we had no food in the house and were off on honeymoon early the next day!

Other things I’ve been loving - Asda’s Pork & Apple sausages, M&Ms, Ginsters slices, getting Homily back after her tests (she’s been shaved!), Carly’s wedding, two more weddings in August, a trip to Bristol next weekend to see the Banksy exhibit with Hayles, shortbread & my new sewing machines which will see some action in August!

In the blogosphere, Thursday seems to be the day to count your blessings. And what better way to cheer yourself up than a blog post about the things that have made you smile this week? Seems like a good idea to me. I will try to do a TiLT each week, but I’m not making any promises!

The things I love this week are:

Thursday is the new Friday – As well as the brilliance of Friday & Monday being bank holidays, I have next week off.. a whole 10 days with no work.. Who wouldn’t love that?! We’re going to Dorset for a wedding, which will be lovely as we are staying in a holiday cottage with my family, and I am really looking forward to showing James around where I was born & went on holidays as a child etc. For the second half of the week we’re driving up to Newcastle to see loads of different family people, which should be nice. Lots of driving for James though – I expect the car will have another 1,000 miles on the clock by the time we are back in Birmingham.

His Dark Materials – My mother-in-law was very kind & treated James & I to go & see an adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman at the REP in Birmingham. I loved every minute of it – it was brilliantly done. The daemons were portrayed by puppets & were simply fantastic to watch; they displayed different emotions very well & you got a real sense of the characters. One of my favourite aspects of it was that they didn’t use much in the way of sets – just some tables, boxes & your imagination – it was very simple but effective. As a result I’m rereading the books at the moment – this could possibly be a factor in my tiredness – I’ve been reading late by accident!

Seeing friends – A good friend of mine is coming over this evening, yay! This makes me happy, especially since I was being a grump the other day and moaning that I hardly get to see anyone cos we’re so strapped for cash lately (£420 on the car last month – OUCH). And the wedding I’m going to on Saturday is an old family friend – I haven’t seen her since my wedding – and I haven’t seen her kids since I don’t know when, must be a good few years now.

Easter Eggs – Why does chocolate taste better in egg form? I’m not sure why, but I know I’m looking forward to the yumminess that is Easter! Nom nom nom.

Hot Chocolate – I’ve taken to having a few Cadbury Highlights sachets in my drawer at work so that when I want a bit of a pick-me-up I can have a gorgeous mug of hot choc without much guilt. The only drinks we have at work are tea & coffee and I don’t want to overdo the caffeine so I’m stuck with water most the time! It’s nice to have another option, especially one that involves chocolate! Especially on a day like today when it’s wet & cold outside.

P.S. Like the TiLT pic? That’s meeeee!