Attitude determines anything, everything. An attitude of gratitude is empowering, humbling, enriching, improving. To find something, for which to be grateful, in the midst of common, day to day challenges is to find treasure. To search and find something to be grateful for in the face of seeming nothing is empowering!
We live in the freedom to be thankful.
We live with opportunities of gratefulness at every moment. Where ever, upon whomever, at any time, our eye falls to see are those opportunities to be grateful.
People who care for us. Safety in our persons and homes. The joy of animals whether felines or canines, or equines. We enjoy liberty of our own choices of entertainments; game playing and reading, or taking a long walk, are but a few.
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“Thank You Lord.” Over and over, repetition all through the morning’s toilette. The words may sound a bit rote, but they are genuine, deeply heartfelt.
I may veer into a couple of hallelujahs, and praise Yous a time or two. This is my way of beginning with gratitude.
To be grateful is a gift that becomes more, and more magnificent as it is recognized, acknowledged, and examined.
Curiouser and curiouser, as the other Alice in Wonderland would say, is that the more a person is grateful, recognizing the Divinely directed favors received to be grateful for, and saying the words out loud, or whispered, or barely formed on the breath, there is more, much more, beyond imagining more, for which to be grateful.
The best two words of advice I can share are, “Be grateful.” The best four words of advice are, “Be grateful in Everything.”
Whoooo hooo! I am grateful, so very grateful that we are experiencing “fallish”, “autumn like” weather before the final end date of autumn at the near end of December!
I’ve had my concerns that the times were going to be summer, lots of summer, and then more summer till the end of summer. The problem with that is that I am not created to have an appreciation for summer.
My DNA is seriously Celtic. I have a natural abhorrence to summer humidity, mosquitoes and other warm weather pestilence, humans parading themselves dressed as almost naked as the law allows, and the dramatically increased electrical bill.
Gratefully can stay inside, look away from the visually offensive, and I can save for the summer electric bill in the winter by wearing layers, and I can wear my personal formulated patchouli blend that greatly offends mosquitos.
Yes, there are many parts of summer to be enjoyed and speak gratitude in abundance. The gorgeous array of flowers and greens foliage. The delicious shade of really tall trees. The joy of children playing in their yards, giggling and gurgling and sometimes squealing in fun. Swimming pools also are to be valued, and creek walking.
Yet for me it is the fall and winter that brings me peace. A kind of comfort with room temperatures on the low side of sixty. Hot chocolate and an oven full of brownies warming the kitchen. Putting clothes on right from the dryer. These are a few of my favorite seasonal support systems.
I am grateful for opportunity to learn, to grow, and to become more and better.
I, me, myself and I, and maybe you, dear reader, are not stuck in the time of ‘whatever ignorance’. For certain, no one can know what they do not know. Yet. Once they know that ‘whatever ignorance’ is gone away, to zip, zero, nothing.
We can simply recognize the lacking, make a choice, or ask a question, or make an effort, a really tiny, little bitty teeny effort and by so doing move into a whole new world of knowledge and wisdom and ways previously not known.
Perseverance is my invisible power!
A Celtic Proverb insists, or maybe promises, “Patience will wear out stones.” Of course I’ve learned that is true.
Also, the cat who meows often and long enough is let out of the door. If many meows does for some reason other than death, not rouse the human to action then the cat must resort to a quiet and sudden jump into the human’s bed and stick the very cold feline nose to the back of the human’s ear, just below the lobe. Ta-Da!
I am grateful to have learned perseverance. I do not know which try will be effective. The second maybe, or the twenty-second. But I do know that perseverance will succeed.
Wow! The temperatures are climbing. Whew!
A spritz of water up and down the body, especially at my ankles and on the nape of my neck, es[ecially cooling while standing in the fan’s breeze.
Outside the shelter and shade of one hundred feet tall Sycamore trees.
An oriental hand fan, or two.
Cooling stations: libraries and shopping malls. Lots to see and do in those. My favorite places for my favorite past time: people watching.
Sitting on the porch and rocking in my rocking chair behind a panel of Mornings Glories and Sunflowers. I watch the bees and butterflies in their busy work and I am grateful.
There were many errands to be done. I didn’t quite know how I would get them all done in such a short space of time. Then, one thing went away. Another thing, my husband took over because he was going to be there anyway.
Suddenly I was all dressed for public viewing and nowhere to be seen. A breathed a deep sigh and realized my phone’s screen was glowing. A call had come in, no sound, a glitch of some kind, but I had missed a call. Checking Voicemail, I heard the voice of a Dearheart needing a ride to the pharmacy.
No big deal. Dressed and with the car ready, I called her back and made plans for us to leave in a few minutes on our journey.
The morning’s news was full of things I could do nothing about. But the one thing I could do meant a whole lot to my friend. It could solve some problems, minor problems blessedly, but problems nonetheless.
I am so grateful to be able to do something.
Today and for many days past, I am grateful for the opportunities to choose my way of thinking in any and every life event,
To choose the ‘Light Hearted’ instead of the burdens of dread and darkness.
To salt my conversations with words of expectation: ‘this will be fun’, ‘that will be an enjoyment’, ‘how entertaining that is’, are thoughtful approaches of choice in the presence of things, people and events that at first occurrences may be on a razor’s thin edge between; ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
What an awesome opportunity.
Too, with people, we each have opportunities to uplift, inspire, and encourage. With the briefest of glances, we can uplift and support another person’s experience.
There are so beauties and so many fine people in every situation. This is each person’s option to practice personal liberty.
Judging the glass to be half-full or half-empty is not the point. The point is: there is a glass, without holes, with a smooth flat bottom and it has something in it.
Be grateful.
At bare daylight, I am pulling on my walking socks and shoes and whatever other garments that might make me more visible. Â If they are hideous in color, puce with Pepto Bismol pink, for example, the atrocity in fashion makes people see me. Â I want to be visible to drivers who are more and more frequently looking away from their phones for scant nano-seconds.
The presence of other neighborhood walkers is a constant reassurance. If I am in trouble there is a walking friend nearby. While I do not know them, by name or address, I know them from passing along our ways every day.
They are clean, attired for the weather and the activity. Often, one and sometimes two dogs trot along with their human. These too reveal their clean state, brushed glossy- coated health. Many are the times the other Walker will be picking up after the dogs. All that speaks to a person’s respect responsibility and maturity of conduct.  Within sight of my route is a deep creek. Sometimes the dogs get to go for a swim and seeing their frolic is a special joy with laughter.
Within sight of my route is a deep creek. Sometimes the dogs get to go for a swim and seeing their frolic is a special joy with laughter.
Daily there are the pleasantries, such nice words to begin a day!
Amidst all this,  there is the confidence of other folks nearby. And their dogs. But not too close to intrude on my reverie.
I am so grateful!
Education for the most part of my life has been of the free but priceless kind. At one time we had to buy our books in our home state, but it was a modest amount and there were programs to assist the kids who didn’t have the price of their books.
Too, there was the learning from observation as much as from practice, all kinds of social conducts, academic subjects and experiences of the planetary resident kind.
By that, I mean that interstellar travellers might not know how to walk in the woods or drink from a stream or how to be cautious at the edge of a wind blown precipice.
The diversity and thoroughness of a background education in Art, its techniques and mediums and history boggles my memory to consider that I know it, but it is as familiar as scratching an itch.
I am beyond words grateful for all of it. Â There is no imagination that could take in all the might not be it not for education.
I often find myself saying aloud I am grateful, I am grateful.
Abbey of Gratitude 