Thankful Thursday! Hello!

So I have been a little absent from my blog.  Obviously...hello, last post was for the New Year!  I can't believe this school year is almost over.  I really hope to have a little more time this summer to post a of projects and stuff.  Anyway, I thought I would go back to my original themes for the days of the weeks.  Today is Thankful Thursday, so I am gonna share a few things I have been thankful for.
1.  Other people's blogs (O.P.B.!  Anyone else catch the 90's hip-hop reference?  Anyone?)  Although, I haven't been writing any blog entries I have been enjoying other people's blogs.  One of my absolute faves in Faith, Trust & a little Pixie Dust.  Michelle is so creative and I love all of her posts.  I have to hold myself back from checking her blog everyday, because I get sad when there isn't a new post!  I suppose she must go out into the world and find stuff to write about.  Anyway, she had this great post on giving money as a gift.  I found the lei as an awesome idea for my nephew's college graduation.  We were all getting together to have fun on one of those blow-up slides to celebrate, so the lei seemed fun and fit in with all the water!  I didn't use quite as many bills as Michelle but used more flowers.  I also tried to get flowers that matched the school's colors.  I used the straw-like spacers that came with the lei.  I used a two flowers, a spacer,dollar bill, a spacer, two flowers, a spacer pattern.
Here is a picture of my lei:

2. I am thankful that even though I may have not won the lottery yet (I suppose you would have to play to win), I can use crafting as a way to help my friends.  Some old neighbor's four year-old daughter just kicked leukemia's butt for the second time.  Some other people in the neighborhood were collecting crafts to help raise some money for the family.  Since the leukemia awareness color is orange I made some orange flower clippies.  I really love these cute felt flowers.  My inspiration for them came from this blog post that I stumbled upon one day.

3.  I am thankful for a school both I and my child really love.  I love how the principal and the entire staff work hard to make sure they treat each other as family.  It really showed this last week when the Endeavour took it's final flight into space.  One of the teacher's husband is an astronaut on the flight and another teacher in the same grade husband works in Mission Control.  The kids are totally fascinated and inspired by that (I am too).  On Monday the school set up a huge screen in the gym.  They called everyone's house using their automated system early in the morning and invited everyone (including parents) to come in a bit early to catch the launch together.  It was so neat.  Everyone counted down and cheered as they watched the shuttle rise into space.  It reminded me of when the shuttle program first started.  I remember teachers rolling the cart with the TV on it into class so we could watch the launches.