"Be grateful for what you have, not greedy for what you don't have"

How do I keep this in mind?
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

Funny, how I forget the magic of daily things - the constancy of the things I always adore.

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.

Priorities, man

So, when I said I was going to run to the store for eggs so I could go home to bake cookies, ...what I apparently meant was:
I'm going to run to the store, buy flowers and 4 other things I didn't know I desperately needed while I wander around unable to find EGGS - a grocery store staple - then go home, eat quite possibly the best coconut pie ever made and 3 mini(-ish) brownies (please don't judge me) while I paint my nails.
Because priorities, man. Priorities.

Quotable February

Finish and move on. - unknown 

Be present.  It's the only moment that matters.

Goodness and Mercy will hunt you down - Ps 23

Originality is nothing but judicious imitation - Voltaire

Protect the ears of you your heart - unknown 

Let your history be surprised by your future - unknown 

Joy is the serious business of heaven.  - CS Lewis

Love without Truth isn't reality - it's sentimentality.  
And Truth without Love isn't sustainable - it's terminal.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

If you don't prioritize your life someone else will. - unknown 

The only way to overcome escapism is to stick around. - unknown 

Life is difficult.  God is merciful.  Heaven is sure. - unknown 

Clean cars and Gratitude

I am wondering how oblivious to others I am.
How blind to kindness.
How much of a foreigner to gratitude.

Have I become so self-focused that I see with tunnel vision the world and people around me?

Illustration:
For my father's birthday, I went to visit him and my family on Sunday.
We all talked about what was going on in our lives, talked of interesting things we'd heard about and speculated about how those things would impact our worlds.

It was very pretty out and my mother, the dog and I took a several mile walk.  When we got back my father and brother had washed my car.

They didn't do it for a reason (other than it desperately needed it). There was no real need. Nothing had been mentioned.  They did it for me.  Expected nothing in return.  There was nothing to gain on their end.  They just love me and with zero prompting, decided to wash my car ...for me.

The feeling that comes with being selflessly loved swells in my chest. There is an almost expanding quality about it. The opposite of empty; fullness, completeness.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 

Love that expresses itself in action.  Love that honestly expects nothing in return. Love is selfless.  Love that looks for ways to express itself.  ...I want to want to live in this love. To bathe in it.  To live it.  But need help (You are love and I am not. Please shape my eyes to see and my hands to do and be in my heart to love).  "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or clanging cymbal."

Try Again.  Fail Again.  Fail Better. -unknown 

"I can resist everything except temptation" - O Wilde 

"Anything that is worth doing is worth doing badly" - GK Chesterton 

Quotable February

"Perfect is the enemy of the Good" - Voltaire