As Thankful as Ever

We sit on the floor. The littles and dogs playing around me. The kids—baby clad in footy pajamas and little boy in his usual Superman suit—build blocks and destroy them. Padawan training for the baby. She’s not quiet a Jedi, still learning to master the force.

My husband’s new “friend” Alexa plays Christmas music. I said I was going to hate her and she wasn’t welcome in our home, but after great display of light-dimming ability as well as finding the kids “What does the Fox say” under their command she’s welcome here.

We’re wrapped in blankets gazing out our windows, snow settled over our sweet cul-de-sac. I’m as thankful as ever, to live here, to allow my children to run and play in our big backyard, to be a part of something bigger, and yet to spend so much of my days focusing on the little and littles.

The sky brightens to a powdery blue and I can’t hardly wait to bundle up and build our season’s first snowman. The carrots are ready.

On this final post for the month of November I leave you with this: Be Thankful. Not just as the holidays roll and around and Facebook news feeds fill up with gratitude challenges, but always. In the little and the big, be thankful. For the good, swell with gratitude and for the bad, painful, ugly, be thankful as well, for without it all that goodness loses it’s flavor, it somehow becomes the norm, and quickly the status quo.

Be thankful for your car with 200,000 miles on it and the journeys you’ve had together, the old shoes in your closet and the places they’ve carried you, the sweater that has lasted you multiple seasons and the warmth it’s given. Yes, be thankful for things, but more  be thankful for people, for kindness, for the ability through your own actions and choices to influence, change, love.

I get frustrated, in a funk, irritated, and lose it—my gratitude—so easily. The clean white snow reminds me this morning to circle back, recalibrate.

I sit and count my blessings. The list is so so long. I am thankful more than ever.