Gratitude.

Thankfulness.

It’s the time of year when our thoughts turn toward these topics but my heart tells me that it should be an every day thing and not just something we do in November.

I do live my life with an attitude of gratitude.  Every day I try to find something to be grateful for and you know what?  Once I start listing those things I find that the list just keeps on growing and growing.

This year I am grateful for caregivers that take care of our loved ones when we can’t be with them.  Specifically the staff at Lima Rehabilitation and Nursing Center that care for Carlton and all of the staff at Copeland Oaks and Crandall Rehabilitation Center that care for my mom.  Without these people I would be lost.  They stand in the gap when “The Village” can’t be there.

I am grateful for my sons and their beloveds who are all four making a significant difference in their worlds both in their occupations and in their personal endeavors.  To know that we were able to raise such generous and caring sons is something to celebrate.  Add in their lovely loves and the gratitude doubles.

I am grateful for this beautiful world that we live in and for all of the opportunities that I have had during this year to revel in and embrace that beauty in so many different places.  Travel is such a gift and we have been blessed to be able to take some pretty spectacular trips this year.

I am grateful for my love of books and reading and for all of the opportunities that those provide me.  I can escape, I can learn new things and I can impinge all through reading the words that others have carefully placed on pages.

I am grateful for friends who get me.  And for faithful readers like you who encourage me to continue to write.

Finally, I am always grateful for my husband who encourages and supports me, who works tirelessly to provide all the creature comforts that I freely enjoy and who is truly my best friend and confidant.  We have had such an amazing life together to know that there is so much more to come makes me so incredibly grateful.

Today wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing just take time to celebrate an attitude of gratitude.  It is easy on a day like today.

“If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” ~ Harold Kushner

“Gratitude is something of which none of us can give too much. For on the smiles, the thanks we give, our little gestures of appreciation, our neighbors build their philosophy of life.” ~ A. J. Cronin

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have—life itself.” ~ Walter Anderson