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I’ve driven into the heart of Atlanta more times in the last three weeks than I have in the last three years. It’s not something I love to do, but when loved ones need you for support or assistance, you go – and you’re glad to go.

Some of you do significant road work almost every day, or maybe you used to. If so, you know that being alone in the car for good chunks of time can be either mentally draining or productive.  At times you want to ponder life; at times you don’t want to think too hard.

Podcasts are great for escapism through laughs or storytelling. Sirius XM is nice for music. I don’t care to listen to the news in the car because the news is mostly not good for my blood pressure. (One nugget did slip through, however. I heard that Canadian fans booed the U.S. at a big pro hockey game on their turf, and it was about more than sports rivalry. To our Canadian friends: I think I can safely safe that most of us are not in any way interested in coming for your sovereignty and making you our fifty-first state.) Let’s move on down the road.

So what else, trivial or important, did my rambling mind touch upon during my travels? Well, I often noticed the atrocious state of my immediate surroundings – my car. Fast food wrappers and bags are three layers deep in the front passenger floorboard because I’ve done a lot of eating on the go. I couldn’t throw them in the back because the rest of my car is still full of the final load we moved from my mother’s house last month. I barely had room to stuff in an overnight bag, and my big old purse sat up front in the seat next to me, sometimes setting the seat belt beeper off.

But I am as grateful for fast food when I’m on the go as I am for a fresh bottle of Coca-cola. I’m talking the “real thing,” not Diet Coke or Coke Zero. My daily soda with its sugar and zero nutritional value is one vice that I allow myself. I could probably lose five pounds in a week if I gave up that habit, but…nah.

On to weightier matters. I can’t immerse myself in praying while trying to change lanes or to avoid becoming a super speeder on the freeway. However, I do send up frequent short prayers of thanksgiving.

I’m thankful for sons-in-law (one already certified, one about-to-be!) who love my daughters as fiercely as I do. I’m thankful for a husband who uncomplainingly holds down the fort at home so I can go where needed, and for a dog who never fails to gyrate with joy when I walk back in the door.

I’m thankful for the nurses and doctors in Labor and Delivery and in the NICU at Piedmont Midtown. They are a melting pot of ages and colors and accents and wardrobes, and they are without exception skilled, compassionate, and attentive.

I’m grateful for the support of extended family, church family, and friends who are like family. Think what you will about Greek life, but my sorority sisters of yore and my daughters’ sorority sisters are among our most treasured friends.

Mostly, I’m thankful for a tiny little girl who will live in the NICU for a while, but is expected to thrive, and for the strength and resilience of her mom. Thank God for the miracles of modern medicine.

And now back to the road. Thank you to the inventor of Waze, the map app that brilliantly helps me avoid the downtown connector in the afternoons. Every little blessing helps preserve the sanity of a road warrior.