Grateful

Such a beautiful reminder to be "Grateful"

Today life gets back to normal after a long weekend celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend enjoying turkey, trimmings and pumpkin pie.  I didn't have the traditional meal, but I did do what I like to do on Thanksgiving weekend and that is reflect. It is a time for me to remind myself of the things I am grateful and thankful for in my life.   

It is easy for us to say we are grateful for "our families" "our health" "being able to live with freedom".  Comments I call generalizations which are our very being and I hope every person can say they have in their lives.  Surprisingly or not, I like to put a lot of thought into what I am grateful for.  Being grateful to me is about the little things and the things that impact and make my life what it is. I decided in today's post that I would share my 2022 random things I am grateful for. 

Coffee: I love coffee and everything about it. Coffee to me is what I need to get through a day.  My love started as a child, I remember drinking it with more sugar and cream than the then perked coffee.  During my career coffee took on a whole new meaning, caffeine was necessary to keep me awake during night shifts.  I tried drinking decaffeinated once for 24 hours.  I had a horrible headache I couldn't get rid of, and I will never do that again, lesson learned. To be honest not sure why I tried. As a rule, I am a black coffee drinker.  I had gotten into a bad habit of using Internation French Vanilla coffee creamer.  My goodness that stuff has got to have some addictive ingredients.  I had to give it up entirely as I became obsessed with it. I do on the rare occasion enjoy Coffeemate double double.  My coffee mugs are treasures of mine.  I only have mugs that have sentimental value, always a gift from someone.  I am just so darn grateful for coffee.

                 

                    

My ability to travel: I just drove 1100 kms in 11 hours to grandparent.  In order to do that you need a vehicle that is in shape to drive those miles. I bought a Ford Escape just before covid and have driven many a covid mile since.  I bought my Escape strictly because it was the color I wanted as that's how I shop for vehicles. "Esay" as I refer to her has served me well and I am truly grateful to have such a good vehicle.  Secondly, you have to have the confidence that you can drive for that length of time and be safe about it.  I have convinced myself I will continue to drive long distances until it is not safe for me or others that happen to be on the road at the same time. I am just realizing how great it is just to have the time to travel.  No rescheduling or hurrying back to work, simply free time is what you have in retirement.  You can strike off for an undetermined amount of time, who knew it was that easy. Of course, there are other ways to travel.  At this point in my life, I am still confident to book a flight, pack my suitcase and away I go.  I hope I can reignite my desire to travel, back into my life now that covid rules are over.   

My health: I realize this topic falls under the generalized category, but it is worth mentioning.  I am far from perfect health, but in pretty good shape considering I have not followed any of the rules of a healthy lifestyle.  I have basically done what I wanted, and when I look at people my age or younger that have tried to be healthy and have serious health conditions, I am reminded to be very thankful.  I have longevity on both sides of my family.  Grandma Dempsey lived to be 98 years old, and Grandma Dixon was 96 years old.  Not that I want to be that old, I just want the sound mind those women had.  

Months that begin with J: My three grandchildren were born in January, June and July. I have this cute little picture that makes me smile every time I look at it.  So very grateful for them in my life.  

My favorite months and my favorite colors

My neighbors:  I love my neighbors.  They are perfect for me.  We have old people talks on the driveway.  We randomly drop off treats and coffee for each other.  We know when one of us is gone "the neighborhood watch" is up and running.  I am grateful that these total strangers thirteen years ago are now such a big part of my life and always have my back.  

My career: I never realized in 1976, that my career would be one of the things that I am most grateful for today.  When I was rebuilding my life, I would wake up every day and my career was always on my daily gratitude list.  When people say they wished they could have gotten a career like I did, I reply, "one day I had an opportunity that you never had, that is the only difference between us". Anything is possible and it is never too late if you believe in yourself.  

Little decorative reminders:  The lovely little things in the pictures are gifts from a special family in my life. These gifts are things I would admire in a store but never buy.  Every day when I place this pillow on my bed, I am reminded to embrace the word on it.  

New experiences: I feel that there are milestones in our lives when we take on new experiences.  I am not often content with what I have if I think I can have more.  In retirement I have become a bit of a dreamer.  

I have always wanted to learn sign language.  I don't know one deaf person, so not really a necessity at this time. Every time I watch the show "Amsterdam" I sit captivated with the communication ability of the deaf doctor. She is such a smooth communicator with her interpreter and her hands. Signing, would be as close as I would come to being bilingual.  I am just in awe of people that can switch from one language to another, and they don't even know how lucky they are. Simply put I struggle with English sometimes, so probably that is why it is all I know.  

I recently heard the Calgary Phil Harmonic Orchestra, a new experience that was breathtaking for me.  I can't imagine the practice and ability the musicians have to play for over 2 hours with dozens of other talented people in total perfection.  

I am all about new experiences and I believe that they will come my way now that I am retired.  Partly from myself, but others will help me with that, so thankful for those people in my life that make my life more exciting.  

I can sew and knit: I didn't realize having the ability to sew means you can fix and create almost anything.  I just grew up watching Grandma and Mom sew, I am not, nor ever will be, as good as they are but I have done a lot of sewing. In the past, I made lots of outfits and costumes for my kids and myself.  Now, I just basically repair clothing for others. My Grandma Dixon taught me how to knit when I was 9.  For those of you that want to be able to knit, it is hard.  Hard in that you need to get the right tension and rhythm.  But you can do it as long as you knit often.  I am grateful to my Grandmas that were mentors in my ability to knit and sew.  

Jessie Memory Bears I made for her 4 Grandchildren from her clothing and Jewelry

One of my favorite patterns to knit

I love making baby outfits

Hats ready for the nursery at the hospital

Blogging: I am so grateful for the confidence to blog.  I have always believed that all good things in life take work, I have never been afraid of hard work and right now that is blogging for me.  I have to admit blogging does take me a long time. My struggles are in getting the correct sentence structure and words, which makes me so very thankful for grammar and spell check, just saying.  I do find the actual words and expression of them comes easily.  

The bottom line is a blog is meaningless unless you have a following and mine is the best a girl could want.  I have received so many positive comments which encourage me even further.  Just to know my words have spoken to people and inspired them makes me want to write more.  Knowing that there are take aways from my posts, is simply amazing to me.  Now a random conversation or an experience makes me think, that would be a great blog post.   

I hope that this Thanksgiving has been special for each and every one reading this.  Do take time to be grateful and thankful, every day not just on Thanksgiving.  I encourage you to make your own silly little list just like I have, I am sure you will be surprised what you are thankful for.