1. I'm grateful for my cousins. All good people and willing to include the more redneck side of the family when we are around.

2. I'm grateful that my aunt held on to mineral shares and my oldest cousin J convinced her to sell them to us to pre-fund her funeral when she had cancer. I did not know at the time but aunt had wanted to leave her nieces and nephews the mineral shares but the state would have taken them because she'd been in assisted housing for x # of years. We effectively got an inheritance as the royalties have exceeded the fair market appraisal price that J got. The state is getting its 15% on the oil + a bit of state income tax so they aren't hurting any.

3. I am grateful I woke up to the media bias in 2008 and had the "OMG, what all history and political views have I held that have been based on lies and the MarxSpewMedia with-holding facts" slap of reality already. Although if folks have not woke up yet, perhaps they will go through life thinking there was a vast right wing conspiracy, rather than accepting the facts and that some of their views were formed based on deliberate mis-information.

4. I'm grateful that I found there are people out there who are putting facts on the web and showing some of the lies from our voluntary pravda media.

5. Grateful for my cat Boots. I selected him at the shelter and he is my ideal cat. He likes to sleep on my bed but not touching me and will ask for scritches for a few minutes and then call it good. Friendly without constantly pestering for affection.