The Giving of Thanks. Anytime. Everyday.

I love seeing friends on Facebook posting their daily gratitudes.  Whether they post for 30 or 100 days, what a great way to embrace (or make) little moments and focus on the good things in life, every day.  My husband takes our family along a similar journey every evening before mealtime and even though the exercise produces some of the same gratitudes night after night (“legos,” “tacos,” and “Sophia, my doll”) it gets us thinking about how there is a gift within each day.

I need this exercise because I am a worrier.  I do “sweat the small stuff.”  For some twisted reason, I think it’s productive to turn the handle on the worry mill and ruminate, ruminate, ruminate.  Admittedly, it’s one of my worst faults and a terrible waste of energy.  Have you ever seen those gift shop-style wooden signs that proclaim, “It really IS the small stuff”?  That statement, I am convinced, is why I worry.

But on the other hand, there’s some pretty awesome “small stuff.”  Not, of course, the ruminations over whether my son will forget his violin on the bus (again) but the cuddles on the couch with my kids, the jogs through the Ponderosa pines with friends, and good “reads” in front of the fireplace.  Those times are simply amazing, made so by what underlies these simple moments and what often gets taken for granted.  So today, my exercise in gratitude is to consider those very things:

I’m thankful for a solid floor, a roof and four walls in a safe neighborhood.

I’m thankful to gaze upon, every day, a beautiful natural world.

I’m thankful for our small refrigerator, even though I curse it.  At least we have a way to keep food fresh.  And the ability to restock when we need to.

I’m thankful for literacy.  That we have books and enjoy reading them together as a family.

I’m thankful for health.  That of my kids, their grandparents and my husband.

I’m thankful for my three kids.  There was a time my husband and I didn’t think we would have even one.  But three?  It still blows my mind.

I’m thankful for simply being.  It’s not always fun or stress-free but I remember as a kid marveling that I was actually alive.  I would wonder, “Why me, why did I get to be born?”  It wasn’t until recently I recalled having those thoughts, reaffirming that life is truly a gift.

And not a moment should be wasted.

Rest in peace, Steve.  You made our school community a better place and all of us better people for knowing you…