{"id":13008,"date":"2024-11-25T08:59:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T16:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=13008"},"modified":"2024-11-25T08:59:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T16:59:24","slug":"gratitude-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=13008","title":{"rendered":"GRATITUDE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s getting to be that time of year … when we blow right past Thanksgiving<\/strong> and start hanging the holiday lights. Traditionally, of course, before Target and Walmart<\/strong> took over the holidays, Thanksgiving was a time for people to take stock of their lives<\/strong> and give thanks for their blessings. \u00a0A friend once told me about a Thanksgiving tradition that I thought it was quite ingenious: \u00a0they put the letters that spell Thanksgiving into a jar, then before they sit down to their feast, each person draws a letter and must say what they are grateful for using a word that starts with that letter. I tried this several years ago and it was a fun way to start the meal. I have to confess that the highlight was when our 11-year-old grandson selected the letter “V” and exclaimed that he was grateful for Viagra. Obviously he’d been watching way too much television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of therapists and new age thinkers who encourage people to keep a journal listing everything that they are grateful for on a daily basis. Heck, I can’t do anything every\u00a0<\/em>day except brush my teeth and eat, so keeping a Grateful Diary is out of the question. \u00a0The concept, however, is a noble one, so this week I decided to combine the two ideas and, in that spirit, create a\u00a0GRATITUDE<\/strong> list for the season.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

G – Girlfriends<\/strong>. \u00a0Where would I be without them? \u00a0Together we laugh, we cry, we play cards, we hack our way around a golf course, and we create. \u00a0They have been, and continue to be, my sanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

R – Relatives<\/strong>. \u00a0I have a wonderful family and I know I’m very lucky that we like and<\/em> love each other. \u00a0We relish our time together and NOT ONCE have we had to have police intervene at a family gathering.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"One<\/a>
One of my more subdued girlfriends<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A – Alan<\/strong>, my late husband. \u00a0Even though he is gone, I am grateful for our long and happy marriage. As the saying goes, better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T – Tea.<\/strong> \u00a0Sometimes there is just nothing like a good “cuppa” to get me through the day. \u00a0I will say that since I bought a Nespresso machine a good cappuccino in the afternoon is a real treat. But Gratitude doesn’t contain a “C” so I’ll go with tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I – Inspiration<\/strong>.  I am surrounded by very imaginative women who are artistic and talented in ways I never will be.  But they inspire me to improve whatever I am doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

T – Time<\/strong>. \u00a0Somehow it seems I never have enough of it. \u00a0How did I ever work<\/em>? Now I love it when an appointment gets cancelled. \u00a0There is nothing like the gift of\u00a0TIME!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U – Unburdened.<\/strong>  As I’ve gotten older I no longer feel like I “have” to do stuff.  I now say “no” when I feel like it.  This is probably why older people are deemed “cranky”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D – Dash the Wonder Dog<\/strong>.  Duh.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Dash,<\/a>
Dash, The Wonder Dog<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

E – Elusiveness<\/strong>.  I am a literal thinker (I’ve taken the test on Facebook to confirm this) but I love that big parts of my life are elusive.  When you think you no longer need to try new things – and fail – life becomes too predictable.  It’s always good to have something beyond your grasp – like losing 10 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s my list for this year. \u00a0Next year it could be something entirely different. Although Dash really is the only “shoe-in”<\/strong>. \u00a0 \u00a0As word games go, I thought this was a good exercise to go through. \u00a0I still don’t think I’ll ever be disciplined enough to do a daily Gratitude Diary<\/strong>, but it sure feels good to stop once in a while to take stock in all of the things, and especially the friends<\/strong>, that make life good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving<\/strong>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s getting to be that time of year … when we blow right past Thanksgiving and start hanging the holiday lights. Traditionally, of course, before Target and Walmart took over the holidays, Thanksgiving was a time for people to take … read more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1682,705,4591],"class_list":["post-13008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-gratitude","tag-thanksgiving","tag-thanksgiving-games"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/gratitude-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31aN0-3nO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13008"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13014,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008\/revisions\/13014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}