One of my Facebook friends had this as her status today. So true in so many ways.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
~ Melody Beattie
Dennis Prager had a show a while back where he was talking about how difficult it is to raise a grateful child today. Children have so much, and want for so little, they appreciate nothing. I have definitely seen it first hand, though I think it is still possible for children to be raised with an attitude of appreciation and respect. And gratitude.
Media & society have convinced us that we need so much, and that we deserve to have it, that parents themselves have ceased to appreciate what they have. Those parents long ago stopped reminding their children about the ‘magic words’ “please” and “thank you”.
If you can learn at an early age to see the generosity of socks under the Christmas tree, then you will also learn to recognize and cherish the love behind that bunny suit from Aunt Clara. If you can’t even manage an acknowledgment when you get something you’ve asked for, you will never experience the level of happiness & contentment that a grateful person does.
It really is the thought that counts – the thought behind the giving, and the thought behind the receiving.
The walking was a little later than usual today, both our morning and evening excursions. That meant that we were walking in the dark, and for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to take an entirely different route than we’ve gone before. Unfortunately, it really was an entirely different route than we’ve gone before – so I got completely lost (yes, in my own neighborhood. Where I’ve lived for more than a decade. Where my sister lived for more than a decade before that.*)
We finally came out on a mostly familiar, but unpleasantly dark & busy, road. I thought I knew where we were and turned right to go home. And ended up at the park…how’d I get on the other side of the park? Ok, at the park, well, guess we’ll just keep walkin’…right?
Thankfully, there is a house near the park that stands out. A house that has signs proclaiming their faith every day, to which they add a grand display to celebrate the various Holidays. Christmas finds their yard big, bold & bright – and instantly recognizable. I saw that giant cross, the enormous Nativity and the blazing star – and knew I was headed in exactly the wrong direction.
Once I had my bearings I was able to get us home fairly quickly, though it still ended up being about twice as long of a walk as I intended.
* My mother worked at the AZ Coliseum for 15 years (20?) and I used to visit her often, as well as working there myself for many years. I never did figure that round building out and usually had to make the whole circle before I found her office. I am severely directionally challenged
From “The Best Walking Partner: Man vs Dog”
To the surprise of the researchers, the dog walkers showed a big improvement in fitness, while the human walkers began making excuses to skip the workout. Walking speed among the dog walkers increased by 28 percent, compared with just a 4 percent increase among the human walkers.
To the surprise of researchers? Nothing surprising there; humans rationalize doing, and not doing, things all the time, particularly things that require effort. Put two humans together and, unless one is already dedicated and set in the positive habit, and you will get double the excuses feeding upon each other.
Dogs don’t consider it, they just do it. Dog walkers may try to rationalize their way out of it, but when you know that critter is counting on you, you just do it, too. (And if you try to tell him you are tired after a long day, he’ll just look at you as if to say, “Yeah, yeah, that’s nice, we can talk about it later – get the leash. C’mon, get the leash”
As far as that bad day at work, consider this:
Ms. Johnson said she suspects differences will show up in other areas, like depression and anxiety, although that data are still under review and the final study has not yet been published.
I have no doubt that positives will show up in those areas. For years, walking has been touted as a sort of meditation. Repetitive physical motion, focused time, rhythm. Add to that the willingness of a dog to share the wag of his tail, and life just seems better.
Since these puppies joined us, I go to bed early, I get up early, and I walk. A lot. In the mornings we all walk together, in the evenings I walk them each individually. That is a lot of walking and my legs/butt/lungs/heart are much better for it.
Especially my heart – I love me some puppies
I’ve been saying that the Republicans need to run with this ‘Party of No’ thing… They are The Party Of No deficits, No new debt, No new taxes, No more big government intrusion into private lives or business, No cap and trade legislation, No more apologies for America, No more dithering around in Afghanistan, No Gitmo terrorists in America, etc and so on. This really should take off, because this could be a winning platform!!
— JenBee commenting here
On my walk with the puppies this morning, I learned something about my neighborhood.
There are flocks of parrots living here.
I’ve been here a dozen years or so and I have never seen them. Granted, I’ve never gone for a walk at 7:30 in the morning, either, so that could be part of it. Unfortunately, I still wouldn’t have noticed them if there hadn’t been a nice lady out walking her old (17 years!) dog. As we were chatting, discussing breeds and such, she looked up and pointed one of the birds out to me. It was gorgeous, bright green with bits of yellow and orange. She said there were bunches of them, she thought at least two ‘separate’ flocks, and that they’d been there as long as she can remember.
As we continued on our way, I kept glancing skyward and sure enough, there they were, in many of the trees, on the electrical wires. Beautiful.
I wonder what else you morning people know about that the rest of us don’t…
BTW: I’ve been trying to find out what kind of parrots they are since we got back, but I’ve had no luck. Medium-sized with short tails. Anyone?
So a bunch of sluts that allowed themselves to be used and exploited by Tiger Woods
. . . are now allowing themselves to be used and exploited by Gloria Allred
(I guess, “Once a money-grubbing, fame-whore of a lawyer, always a money-grubbing, fame-whore of a lawyer” fits, too)
For anyone participating in the ornament exchange – thought I’d post what I just wrote for a new participant.
There really are no “rules”, though I can tell you how it started. The original idea was to make a personalized ornament for each family in the family. Most often now-a-days, the ornaments aren’t especially personalized – but they are still homemade. They aren’t always ornaments (a couple of years ago S made Christmas card display/holders, M & her boys made candles one year) – I think the main reason we settled on ornaments in the first place was just that they would be small and easily displayed.
I’ve kept to the personalized (or tried to) because I love celebrating what happened that year. And it is fun to look back at them as a sort of diary.
We didn’t start out smart enough to label them, so there are several in my collection that I have no idea who made them or when
Now I suggest that you include your names and the year so we will always know.
I don’t have a total number participating this year, but we usually end up with about a dozen. I usually make 15-20, just to be sure I’m covered. As soon as I know for sure, I will post it.
Am I missing anything? Did I get anything wrong? Fill in the blanks
Elin, the hottie waiting at home
versus
The random skanks he had to go out to find
What was he thinking?? And, as all reports show those as women who “got around”, what did he risk exposing his wife to?
It was a very rough night for me (cramps, if you want the TMI version) so not much quality sleep. Then this morning the pups decided it was time to just randomly bark, and I was too tired and sore to go properly wear them out (it would’ve been handy if they had a better grasp on fetch 
)
Add to that the cat puking on the bed, and the bird’s general obnoxiousness (“chirp chirp squawk chirp screech”) and the day was not shaping up well.
I should have known I could count on D. Breakfast was a homemade brownie with whipped cream & a tall, cold glass of milk. Then he made me one of his irresistible, world famous iced coffees. Lunch was scrambled eggs, ham & fresh baked rolls.
So nice to be pampered, especially when you feel like crap.
I am SO spoiled 
I recently contributed to the Amici Book Drive (via Amazon Wish List, couldn’t be simpler & they still need some books, hint hint) which got me thinking about other ways to get children reading more. And adults, when you get right down to it.
I have posted before about how much I love my Kindle, though it is a pricey option. The great thing is, they have a Kindle reader for your PC
There are a multitude of books available for purchase in Kindle format (you can sample them first if you are unsure), as well as newspapers & other periodicals. But here is the truly genius part, especially for kids – there are THOUSANDS of titles available for free. Great books by great authors, letters by important historical figures compiled in volumes, speeches transcribed and converted and waiting for you to download them right to your desktop and read them with your kids. Dickens, Austen, Churchill, Lincoln…a plethora of choices.
Wading through all those titles is a bit cumbersome, but well worth it for all the gems to be found.
