Gratitude

For the month of November I have joined Deborah's 30 Days of Thanks. For a long time I have thought about keeping a gratitude journal, but somehow I never got around to actually do that. Thanks to Deb, I finally found the motivation for doing so. Every evening I write into my regular journal what I am thankful for that day. It is such a good way to end the day before bed.

This has been the first week, and my biggest reason for gratitude is my family - my wonderful husband and my beautiful daughter. With either of them life wouldn't be as beautiful and full of joy and laughter as it is. I love my husband's odd sense of humor, his geekiness and the red shirts he prefers to wear. My daughter has a similar sense of humor and shares my husband's love for math and science. She is the biggest gift in my life, a miracle that I marvel about every single day (even when I'm mad at her). These two people are the center of my life.

I am thankful for another gorgeous autumn week here on the North Coast. I enjoy the still warm rays of sunshine and still hang out in my hammock whenever possible, covered with two blankets and the cat beside me. Oh, the cat, Geeda - after Ginger, "my" other neighborhood cat, had passed away last year's summer, I really missed a cat in my yard who would come to greet me in the morning and snuggle up in the afternoon. When Geeda suddenly turned up this April, she took this place of the visiting neighborhood cat. I actually think, if I let her she would move right in. I am so happy and thankful that this little white "monster" is part of my life (on her terms, of course).

This week I read a book about the Siege of Leningrad, and I thought how much we take for granted that we have food every day and don't have to go hungry. And I mean decent food - organically grown, cattle raised and kept under human conditions - at least that's the food I buy. I'm grateful that I have the means and the choice to do so. Healthy food is important to me, I want to feed my family good stuff, and I enjoy cooking. I hate throwing food away, so we also have leftovers in this house - you can make delicious meals out of them. I'm thankful for our dinners every evening and the breakfast on the weekends when we gather around the table, eat, talk and laugh. It's one of my highlights of the day.

I'm thankful for Deb's 30 Days of Thanks as a kick in my butt to finally get me started on my gratitude journal.