Tag: gratitude

I checked out today’s Memories page on Facebook and this commemorates “Gratitude, Day 1” in 2014. Back then, I was inspired by a friend tagging me in her post to say, “YOU give it a shot.” This year’s inspiration… not as good.

I spent the first part of the day at a visitation/mass for Marie Moilanen, my little brother’s mother-in-law, who passed away last Tuesday. It was only a matter of time—she died from pancreatic cancer—but it’s still hard to experience. Even when it’s inevitable, even when the person is no longer in pain, death is tough.

During the service, people focused on what a positive person she was, how she shared so much happiness and joy with everyone, how she was grateful for all of the blessings in her life… it was sad, but also inspirational.

I saw Gratitudes on Facebook, I saw gratitude at mass, I watched a video about mindfulness and gratitude this afternoon… I even have a Gratitude app on my phone! Everything just seemed to click.

On the first go-round, I wrote three every day for a month and only repeated something once. I started again a few years ago on my blog with Five Gratitudes every day, which lasted a week. This time, I’m not setting any hard rules for myself. At least three gratitudes a day, possibly more; no set number of days; don’t sweat if I miss a day… expressing gratitude shouldn’t be difficult or a stressful experience. So with that said, here we go!

1. Teresa Smith, my fiancee. Prior to meeting her, I might have something special happening at the end of the week and I’d kinda coast through the days until then. Now I have something special happening in my life every day: her.

2. Berkley and Sophie, our two dogs. Two rescues who have completely different personalities, but the same warm space in my heart.

3. Attending the visitation/mass today. I thought about skipping it and just going to work this morning, but considering the result (see: this blog entry), I’m glad I went.

4. The rest of my family. I got to see a lot of them this morning and I love them very much.

5. My car. That’s how I got to the church, that’s how I got to work, that’s how I got home again. I spent a lot of time on the road, but it could have taken a full day or more with a horse and buggy.

Gratitude, day three. I was invited to play by Vee. For five days, you list three things you are grateful for, and… you know the drill.

1) Sleeping in. I like it a lot more than waking up too early.

2) The Interwebs. Keeping in touch with people around the globe, a near-infinite amount of information accessible with a few taps on a keyboard, cat videos.

3) My family. I love them whole bunches.

3b) Definitely grateful for my grandma. She’s 96, one of the smartest ladies I know, still living in her own home and still loving life. An inspiration.

3c) Extremely grateful for my dad. Age 71, he’s survived a heart attack, two open-heart surgeries, stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma (currently in remission) and three sons. (And a partridge in a pear tree…) He brings a lot of joy to a lot of people.
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Gratitude, day four. I was invited to play by Vee. For five days, you list three things you are grateful for, and anything else you do is a crap shoot.

1) My sense of humor. Some people laugh and some people groan, but if God wanted all the people to laugh all the time, He wouldn’t have created politics.

2) Caffeine. Aside from the anti-seizure meds, it’s my drug of choice.

3) Boy Scouts of America. It was a big part of my life growing up, it’s my current employer and it was my subtitle on Beauty and the Geek (“Assistant Boy Scout Master”).
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Gratitude, day five. I was invited to play by Vee. For five days, you list three things you are grateful for, and then live happily ever after.

1) Time zones. I was visiting my brother in Wisconsin on Tuesday, got home late, did a couple chores around the house, then realized it was 12:15 on the 30th. But that’s Central Time: in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, it’s still the 29th.

2) Comfy shoes. I spend a lot of time on my feet at work, so being allowed to wear sneakers is awesome compared to how I’d feel wearing flat-soled shoes all day.

3) Cheetos. Because they’re Cheetos.

Gratitude, day one. I was invited to play by Vee. For five days, you list three things you are grateful for, and invite three more people to join.

1) Pizza. Because pizza.

2) My job at the Scout Shop. The schedule is flexible, my coworkers are fun and I like being able to pay down my credit card balance.

3) My rebellious spirit. Okay, I’m not that rebellious, but enough that I don’t feel the need to abide by rules like inviting more people to join. Mwa ha ha haaaaaa!!!
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Gratitude, day two. I was invited to play by Vee. For five days, you list three things you are grateful for, and invite three more people to join. Or zero people. Or a couple dozen. It’s your call.

1) Air conditioning. It wasn’t that hot today, but hot enough to remind me of days when A/C is a godsend.

2) My right patellar tendon. My knee was feeling a bit sore and wobbly today (probably pushed it too hard on the elliptical machine yesterday), but if it weren’t for the surgery that used the middle third of said tendon to replace a torn ACL, my knee might not be functional enough to use an elliptical machine at all.

3) Lamictal and depakote. Because not having epileptic seizures is awesome.

4) Pizza. I know this was on yesterday’s list, but I’m including it again because pizza.

This is a challenge that’s gone through Facebook a couple times. The version I’ve read on my news feed the last few days reads like this: “I have been challenged by ___________ to a gratitude challenge: to post three things I am grateful for for five days, and challenge three friends a day for the challenge.”

Given that I’ve written gratitudes in the past (see: previous blog entries in this category), I took on the challenge when someone tagged me back in July and started posting three things for five days. And then I kept posting more. And more. And more.

I eventually wrapped up toward the end of August, but the one thing that occasionally nagged at me was that I was writing them there, but even with my Gratitudes category here on my blog, I never touched it. My blog has been getting lonely enough as it is, but posting gratitude status messages on Facebook was like rubbing salt in the wound.

I haven’t decided how to proceed, really. It’ll be a bunch of copying and pasting, but will I do one a day? Two a day? Randomly dump five into a single blog post every week and a half or so? I don’t know, but since the ladies say they love spontaneity, maybe I won’t bother with a pattern. I guess we’ll both find out whenever they get posted.

Aside from all that, feel free to take up the challenge on your own. You can post your gratitudes online; you can write them in a journal. Whatever the case, take the time to remember the spiffy things in your life. (Here’s a blog entry from back in 2006 that might help if you need some suggestions.)