Category Archives: Journal

day 30 {thank you}

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day 30… the last day of my 30 day gratitude challenge. It feels like an ending today and a new beginning, and I am deeply grateful for that…I am grateful for being inspired by the wonderful, caring and wise people in my life… grateful for the laughter and tears of the last month, for the growth and broadening of my awareness, for my family, my daughters, my friends + those close to my heart.

I am deeply grateful.

day 27: learning to count among other things

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Well, I somehow managed to skip a day but I caught it. I was wondering why suddenly there were two days left until the eve of my birthday – when there are 3 according to the calendar in front of me. I will admit, simple math foils me sometimes. Actually, it is more that the days have been blending together this month and I have been having a hard time keeping track from one day to the next. Regardless, these last three days will count just as much as the rest of the month has….

Today:

I am grateful for waking up at 3am with an idea for a new story and that I woke up again and it was still with me.

I am grateful for the frozen snow flakes on my car window.

I am grateful for stories that move me to tears and remind me there is good in this world.

I am grateful for the dark days because the sun today seems much brighter.

 

day 23: being grateful for gratitude, giving up my story and silence (aka when the crit ick is forced to shut up)

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I am grateful for being forced to think about what I am grateful for on days, though rare, I do not feel like I have one positive thing to say – grateful for my story and that I am willing to give it up. – grateful for silence and stillness that allows for the space that I need to grow. – grateful for that voice in my head that keeps yapping on because one day I am going to shut it.

day 22: play, patience and flower surprises

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Today I am grateful for a funny game that my friend Michelle started on her FB page. It is a take off of the normal “tell me how you met me as a reply to this post”… instead, it asks you to lie about how you first met someone. It turned into  a funny and playful writing game – and I love that. It was quite interesting actually to see how it all played out, and I am currently re-writing a part of my history that never existed in the first place. It’s just awesome. It actually is quite a coincidence because yesterday afternoon the question was asked – are you willing to give up your story? A question that really has gotten me thinking (most of the night and well into today). This playful retelling of how I have met people is tied into that in such a beautiful way, that it has (and will) inspire more stories. I love that.

I am grateful for dreams for the same reason – because of the inspiration that they have given to me in the past for stories that I have written – and also for the subtle insight they can sometimes give as well. Mostly I am just happy to be dreaming again.

I am grateful for patience – I have been a bit short of it lately and I am getting good reminders that it’s time to remember just what patience is all about.

Finally, I am grateful for gifts of flowers, the unexpected and kind gestures of people who continue to take me by surprise this week. Yesterday a woman came into my office – I met her at the art show a couple of weeks ago. We had been chatting about art and framing and she mentioned that she had two silk paintings that her cats had knocked over and broken the glass frame. I offered to frame them in the new frames she had bought, which I did. When she came to pick them up the day before – I wouldn’t take her money. It didn’t cost me anything to frame them – and I just wanted to help her. So yesterday she arrived with a beautiful amaryllis in full bloom. It’s really beautiful. A thank you. It was incredibly sweet of her to think to do that – and totally unnecessary… but I am happy to watch it bloom in the window.
I am grateful for:
1. Imagination and play
2. Dreams
3. Patience when I have none
4. unexpected gifts of flowers

day 21: dance like no one is watching

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today, I am grateful.

I am now in the ‘habit’ of getting up in the morning and writing down four things that I am grateful for in my life. It suddenly occurred to me this morning that it has been 22 days since I started this (mostly because 22 was staring me back in the face after I typed it out in the title… ) In 8 more days, I am going to be finished this 30 day challenge… I like 30 days. It always feels manageable… and so far it has been. I haven’t woken up and thought, gee I am not grateful for anything more than once. I think there was one day that I wrote about when I thought, no I am not grateful for anything. I was in a dark moment, feeling miserable and sorry for myself. I won’t say without good reason because I did have a good reason, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge, I thought more about it and did in fact come up with four reasons to be grateful. The thing is – it wouldn’t be a challenge if it all came easily.

Today though, I have no trouble coming up with something to be grateful for. Yesterday morning on my way to work, I stopped in to the local bank to get some money out of the ATM. It was early morning (around 7:20 or so) and the parking lot was empty. I pulled into a space and parked. I was getting out of the car when a man in a pick up suddenly zoomed by in front of me cutting across the parking lot to go out the other exit. I stopped, surprised, and I guess I made a confused face that he saw – because he immediately hit the brakes and started yelling at me for making a face at him. While he was yelling – I started walking quickly to the bank – just trusted my gut that things weren’t right. He kept yelling and ranting about how everyone deserved to live (which I agree with, and for my part, I just wanted to get out a bit of money for coffee without being run over by a lunatic). He asked me one question – what the hell I thought I was doing. I said – parking my car to go to the bank. It was enough to set him off more and he got out of his truck, called me some nasty words and chased me. I said nothing more and I ran into the bank (because there were cameras so if anything happened at least there would be a record of it). He didn’t come in, luckily. He must have left right afterwards, just wanted to scare me. Needless to say, he did. Sometimes, it is just better to run and not engage someone who is clearly got other issues going on that he needs to start freaking out at someone for giving them a look while they did something that seemed to be a danger to me and was…. I will be more careful regardless.

I am grateful to be able to share my photos with people still – I have had several people come up to me following the little show that I did to comment on the photos. One person came and bought a card with a photo of columbine – which he turned into a love letter to his wife. Made me smile a lot to be part of that..

I am grateful that someone – a completely stranger, shared their beautiful creation with me after I featured their work in an Etsy treasury…  http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d46fe0fe38b8eefb8f0711d/do-you-love-me

I am very grateful to Laure – the earrings are beautiful. I was touched by your kindness. Thank you thank you thank you!

Lastly, I am grateful for finding myself spontaneously dancing to a new song that I had heard for the first time yesterday. I am not a big dancer… in fact I often joke that I dance like a gnome on a donut bender – awkward and rotund. It’s not a pretty site. I did find myself busting a move to a song that I had not heard before… and I just could not help myself. I danced in my kitchen to it – while no one was watching. I realized in that moment – sometimes it is just good to dance and not care who is watching. I dare you to play the song “Waiting for the end” by Linkin Park and not feel the beat. (plus, it is a really cool video!)

~

I am grateful
1. to be able to think quickly on my feet and run when I need to
2. to be able to share the beauty that I see around me
3. for when people unexpectedly share their beauty with me
4. for feeling like dancing when a song came on…and dancing around my kitchen like no one was watching. (No one was, but still… I can’t even remember the last time I felt like that hearing a song.)