Random things to be thankful for

I taught a lesson a couple of weeks ago to my young women in church about gratitude and asked them to write down some things they were thankful for that were not the first things that came to their head.  Pretty much everyone is thankful for their family and other obvious things.  I wanted them to think outside the box and realize that the things they have to be thankful for are infinite.  So, I thought I would take my own challenge and highlight a few things that I am thankful for throughout this month that aren't the basic, Primary answers.

The first thing that came to mind as I was walking today was that I am thankful for this little town that I get to live in that I had never even heard of before I moved here.  While attending BYU my husband and I used to visit my sister who was married to a Marine at the time and living in Oceanside.  We really loved the area and when it came time to graduate we were lucky enough to get a job in the same area.  My sister found some brand new apartments in my little town which was close to her so we moved here.  We loved it so much that we bought a home here and have been here ever since.

We are from northern California but almost all of my cousins live in the Los Angeles area or down here in San Diego County.  I have been envious of my cousins for my whole life.  They were sooo COOL!  Whenever we would come and visit them I thought they were the luckiest people in the world to live down here.  I wanted to be from Southern California so bad.

I am not a big city girl so Los Angeles would not be the place for me.  Even San Diego is too big and busy for me.  My little town is perfect.  When we moved here it was much smaller and had lots of fields and big, open spaces.  Since it grew up gradually I haven't really minded it getting bigger and bigger.  All of my friends have the same "cow town" mentality that we've had for years so it still feels rural and country-ish even though it's really not anymore.  I randomly think about the fact that 3 of our 7 children were born here and all of them were raised here and it makes me so happy that they can say they are from the area that I always wanted to be from.  So in this month where we are focusing on being thankful, I'm very thankful for San Marcos, CA.