How do I keep from complaining and whining and wishing for more?
Though I read One Thousand Gifts several years ago and agreed with Voskamp, I still have nothing but trouble being grateful in my daily life. Like the four year old in this article I lose sight of the things I have and see only the holes in my life.
I just found this list I made a few years back titled - Things I love.
It reads as follows:
- Flowers
- Tire Swings
- Tea Parties
- Freshly Cleaned Clothes
- The Ocean on my Feet (Tide)
- Laughing Late at Night
- Warm Cookies with Cold Milk
- Apple Picking
- Tree Climbing
- Rope Swings over Water
- Horse Rides
- Picnics with Frisbee
- Warm Summer Nights - that feel like noon at midnight (midnight summer drives with the windows open)
- Roaring hot Fires
I've been trying to come up with 10 things a night for which I am grateful.
...The optimal word is "trying". Translation: I did well on vacation - when there were no distractions from it - but now that I'm back to my life it is dangerously closet to non-existent. Like flossing, really, it totally happens ...some times...if I feel like it...and there's a full moon...and I happen to be in the presence of floss at that very moment.
So, here. So now. Now is a good time for me to put this down again. To put this in my heart again.
Thank you for:
- The supersonic sound of the Blue Angels practicing over head at lunch
- The way fruit flavored yogurt tastes far superior when it's loaded full with extra fruit.
- These strange August days that feel cool as spring.
- Real conversations with my brother over lunch.
- Being able to ask my best friend any random thing that comes to mind - no judgement, no inconvenience.
- Starting a new book that is so funny and fun and full of promise
- Ridiculous dialog between female characters that makes me think of Sarah.
- The way having a kindle let's you magically receiving books from the library like surprise gifts.
- Multi-colored Sharpies - packs of 24 possibilities.
- Seeing the joy in someone else when good things happen (US citizenship).
- Silhouettes of geese flying overhead in the sunset peachy sky with a green field below.
- The way the sun feels so warm on my skin as I scrunch in a chair to read a good book.
- The feeling of the wind in my clean, cut hair.
- Talking Grandma about the past in a garden gazebo. Her honest to goodness joy that I came.
