Thankful and Hopeful - My First Meme!

For the first time ever, I have been tagged with a "meme," so now I feel I really "belong" in the blogging community! ;D Thanks Stella's mami, particularly for your handy definition of "meme," complete with its etymology! I will keep your format of thankfulness and hopefulness because it works well for me right now. The trickiest thing will be to think of only 10 things to be thankful and hopeful for :)

10 Things I'm Thankful For:

1. My wonderful husband, my best friend, who besides being a funny and stimulating person to be with is an amazing father, whom the boys adore.
2. My sons, cute beyond belief, bright, funny, energetic, and also very loving. They're loads of work, but it's all worth it :)
3. My parents, who are dedicating all of their energy to help me right now, and the rest of our family: my only brother and SIL, my mother and father IL, my brothers and sisters IL, my cute nephew and the nephew/niece that's on the way.
4. My dear friends in Brazil and their children. I miss them so much, but just knowing that they exist makes me happy.
5. I'm thankful for the internet, for email, and online "telephony"and IM that allows me to keep in touch with friends and family far away, and the resources that are available online for academic research.
6. I'm really thankful for blogs and blogging, because I learn a lot about some amazing people and their experiences, and feel connected to them. This makes it much easier to be an expat mom and student.
7. Airplanes/ air travel - so I can travel to Brazil relatively quickly (9 hours), as well as to other parts of the world. It's very convenient and not too expensive. (I was running out of things to say and thought of my upcoming trip to Brazil in exactly 2 weeks)
8. The privilege of being able to study. I sometimes complain a lot about how hard it is to complete this Ph.D., but I know that not everyone has access to even basic education, let alone graduate school. (like Dawn says, I think it's healthy to "unpack my privileges")
9. Of course, related to the last one, I'm thankful that we're healthy, have enough to eat and live, have a house, and it breaks my heart to think of those who don't.
10. My faith, because it gives me peace and stability regarding my life and my future.

10 Things I'm Hopeful For:

1. I hope that I can finish my dissertation and defend by next May
2. I hope nobody in my committee gives me excessive trouble when revising my dissertation - that's my biggest fear.
3. I hope that my husband can find a great job when he enters the job market next Fall at a place we will enjoy living (or if it works out at this job I'm applying to, that he can get a job at the same place - there's a job offer in his area too).
4. I hope we can "settle down" a year and a half from now, at the latest, and end our wandering lives as students/postdocs.
5. I hope we get to go to a good place, and are happy there, wherever it is. (I'm really, really curious to know where we'll end up! :)
6. I hope I can make more friends, both now and in the future (where we settle down), because I miss having friends.
7. I hope my sons become good friends to each other, and enjoy being close in age, in spite of their very different personalities
8. I hope I can be a good parent to them. (make that - I hope they think I was good parent one day :)
9. I hope I can have a good relationship with my sons when they're older (I know I'll have to wait for this one after they are a certain age, but hopefully it will work out).
10. I hope I can keep on blogging, it's a lot of fun.

And now... I get to tag some fellow bloggers (this is the "funnest" part! :) . Feel free to follow previous versions of this meme, such as the one I saw at Here in Korea (with "shallow" and "genuine" things you're thankful for), or not do it at all if you don't like it or don't have the time. Therefore, I tag Sophie La Porte, expatmama, Kateri, Jo(e), and a new reader to my blog, Bellarour.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!