Gratitude: What Are You Grateful For?

At this moment, I am grateful for:

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* Air conditioning - I can't imagine this heat wave without it and feel for those who are without

* Chocolate - when I am recovering from a migraine, I always crave chocolate. Maybe it's that love feeling that it give you.

* A toddler who tells me he loves me about 100 times a day

* Imitrex

* Cicada song - I love that sound

* God's grace - My thought life has been sucky of late; His grace sustains me

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* Tiger lilies

* red winged blackbirds

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* a refrigerator covered with toddler artwork

* a husband who not only loves me, but thinks I'm hot!

* Quickie, who snuggled with me all afternoon

My Quickie

Heartfelt Gratitude

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It's been a busy week (to say the least) and so I haven't been individually answering my comments. I just don't have the time. But I do want to tell all of you that commented (and those of you that didn't but have us in your thoughts anyway) that I can't express the gratitude that I have for the prayers, the well wishes, and the thoughts that you have had for Tim and the family these last few days.

Tim was experiencing more pain today, so if you're looking for something new to pray about, prayers for a decrease in his pain would be so appreciated.

You all are wonderful people, my readers and fellow bloggers, and my world has been made a better place by having you in it. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

Sitting in the dark

I'm sitting in the dark in Tim's hospital room listening to him sleep. He's pretty doped up, which is fantastic, because with his last surgery (after his accident) nothing would control the pain, he didn't sleep, and he was in constant agony. But he's snoring and dopey and can't keep his eyes open. He rated his pain as a 5 on a 1 - 10 scale. His face is calmer and quieter than I've seen it in a long time.


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We arrived at 6:30 am, his surgery was at 8:30, he was done at 1:00pm and up to his room at 3:30. Sitting in a surgery waiting room for 9 hours is incredibly exhausting. Moving from one polka dot chair to another, trying to find the most comfortable place, going to the cafeteria just for something to do. But where else could I be? It will be hard to leave him here; I haven't slept without him for over a year. I am so relieved and happy, though, as he seems peaceful. All is well.

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Today I am grateful for kind nurses, orthopedic surgeons who are down to earth, attitude free, and do their job well, and the morphine that is keeping my husband out of pain.

Dust of Snow

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The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Robert Frost (1923)

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Today I am grateful for central heat, a warm bed, a downy coat, and my cabled pink gloves, bought when I was so cold at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf (and memories of travel to faraway places)

I'm Grateful: Joy

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This month of gratitude has been filled with joy. I find that I catastrophize an awful lot, but when i am forced to concentrate on all of the things that I have to be grateful for, the catastrophizing stops. And I feel contentment and joy. I have to say that I am grateful to Lisa for coming up with the brilliant idea of a month of gratitude; it has affected me more than I ever imagined it would. To that end, I am still going to incorporate grateful things in my blog to keep the practice going. I would recommend this assignment to anyone. You just may not realize how much joy there is in your life until you do it.

I'm Grateful: Healthy Children

Working as a doctor I learned all of the things that can happen to children. Illness that comes out of nowhere, genetic disorders that cause lifetime issues, psychological conditions that can tear families apart.

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I am thankful for healthy children. A toddler that goes at 100% all day long and whose new found passion is harassing the cats. Teenagers who, for the most part (excluding the to be expected teenage angst) are happy, strong, athletic, and rarely ill. It is a blessing.

I'm Grateful: Warmth

Winter has come to Ohio. We've had snow, though nothing that has stayed, and it is cold. So today, I am grateful for sweaters, blankets, mugs of hot chocolate, wollen socks, cozy blankets, the golden glow of candles, mufflers, slouchy hats, and all things that keep us warm as the weather gets cold.

I'm Grateful: American Indians

Yesterday while I was making my corn pudding and warming the sweet potatoes I started thinking about that famous story all Americans learn in school about the first Thanksgiving. How Squanto helped the fledgling colonists against his better judgement get through those first years as Americans and today we celebrate this with a great dinner with all of the trimmings.

The American Indians are a beautiful people. The first images of them are some of the most beautiful photographs in existance. We can't go back and change what our forefathers did to them, but we can honor and celebrate their culture and support initiatives to restore to them the diginity and respect that they deserve. We can honor our earth, respect the land, and work toward bringing back so many animals from near extintion. Most importantly, we can practice the principals that they tried to teach us so long ago. This might be the greatest tribute of all.

Garfield Jackson


Little Wolf, Cheyenne








Pawnee Warrior



For more absolutely beautiful photographs of early Native Americans (and all of the history, stories, and culture of this great people) visit First People. I'm just going to warn you: this site might actually blow you away.

I'm Grateful: Silence

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The older kids have ditched us for Thanksgiving. I'm not really all shook up about it; they are starting to use their wings and fly further from the nest. They are all with various family members that they rarely get to see and I'm sure will be having a great Thanksgiving with them. Hubs, Will, and I will be having Thanksgiving with my parents and my aunt Carol.


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It is usually pretty loud and chaotic around here when the whole brood is home. But now that it's just the hubs, the Will, and me, it's so Silent. And Calm. And Quiet. And it will be until next Monday. The cats aren't hiding. As I am writing this, Foxy, who is usually hiding in some weird spot like the lazy Susan or our bathroom waste basket, is trying to figure out how to get onto my lap. Seems I'm not the only creature in the house who was ready for some silence.

Ah, blessed Silence.

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I received an email with a link to Tyler's Thankful story. Tyler is a 15-year-old with a brain tumor; in my years as a pediatrician I was always impressed and amazed with the way chidren and teens handle serious disease. Please read his words, and if you'd like others to know about him, please link to Tyler's story on your blog.

I'm Grateful: Sibling Love

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I am grateful to have a 17-year-old who loves to sing, dance, jump around with, slide, swing, and otherwise engage in all types of play with her sometimes annoying 3-year-old brother.


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Hearing them in her room singing Top 40 music at the top of their lungs is always a highlight of my day.

I'm Grateful: A few things

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Today I am grateful for: microwave popcorn, Will spinning in circles singing songs, having money to buy Christmas gifts, and soft, silly kittens.

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I'm grateful for a time of year that lets us reflect upon why we are grateful.

I'm Grateful: Moments of Frivolity

Frivolity - self-indulgence, irresponsibility, triviality, abandon, levity, foolishness.

I love to watch William play. He plays with complete abandon, few limits, and for the simple pleasure of it. And his whole day is looking for the next fun thing to do. He relishes in going down slides, vroom-vrooming cars over any surface he can find, spinning in circles until he gets so dizzy he falls down, and singing at the top of his lungs.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could indulge ourselves like three-year-olds. Often, it seems, responsibilities like finances, cooking, cleaning, working, and raising kids gets in the way of our former frivolity.

But occasionally, those moments shine through. I urge you to tango with your five-year-old, to spin in circles with the toddler, to swing until your stomach flips, just let your hair down as they say. Let the frivolity take over; you will be grateful you did.

Gratitude

This month, I'm joining Curious Girl in blogging about those things that I am grateful for. I spend a lot of time doing the "if only we had more money" thing, so when Lisa brought up this topic I thought it would be a great exercise for me.

Today I am grateful for our home. I've written about how close we came to losing it and how we danced on the edge of homelessness. But my in-laws would have nothing of that and are helping us with our payments until we are more financially stable.

I watch HGTV manically and I'm always struck by how the people on House Hunters "need" so much room in their houses. Our house is small by most people's standards, but if you compare what we have to other parts of the world, we live like kings. And we have So Much Stuff. A few years ago a photographer had a family who lived in a mud hut in Africa and an American family put everything that they owned on their front lawns and took a picture of both. It was almost embarrassing how much more the American family had.

I struggle to teach our children that life is not about more, more, more; I'm not sure how much is getting through. It took me this long to realize that we could live a really nice life on very little money, it just meant that the couch was going to stay old and stained, some of my clothes would have little holes in them, and we weren't going to buy everything in the world for our children. We have so much already, we really don't need anymore.

Our needs have been supplied and we have a beautiful home to return to every day. For that, I am grateful.