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| Thank God It's Friday (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
It's 2:30 am where I am right now, and really, I suppose I should be getting ready to curl up in bed next to Draco, but we just got home from Witchlet's and although we're both tired, neither of us seem quite ready for bed yet, so I started going through my email and found the post Cin did today. You can find it here, TGIF: Simple things.
Even though it is technically Saturday, not Friday, and most of the people who read this will see it later in the day, I was so moved by her post, that I decided I just had to jump on board because it is such a lovely idea. It's not a "sign up for blogger meme" or anything like that, just something she decided to do, but I believe that it would make a wonderful meme if she ever decided to make it one.
So many times, we get caught up in the hustle and bustle of modern life, that we tend to forget to be grateful for our blessings, both great and small, and although I mentioned in a previous post that I don't make New Year's Resolutions anymore, and "Attitude of Gratitude" was one of the things I wanted to work towards this year.
You see, I can tend to be a bit of a pessimist when life gets complicated. I get overwhelmed and it seems like everything around me is doom and gloom and all I see is the bad. A lot of my life experiences have been negative, so I find that when I write about my past, and occasionally about my present, it's in an attitude of complaint over the things that are not going well. Cin's post inspired me to look closer at my life in an effort to try to focus, at least one day a week, on remembering the positive things in my life, and being grateful for them.
After all, the energy we put out there is the same energy we pull to us, right?
So, on Fridays, I want to start doing a post like what Cin is doing over on her blog. In the spirit of gratitude, here is my TGIF post for this week. Remember, you can find the post that inspired mine over at Witchy Rambles.
At this moment, I'm grateful to my sister of the heart @TimberLeaves, for introducing me to blogging many years ago when it was still in its infancy. Because of her, I have owned several blogs, one of which at one time held some popularity and interaction regularly, and I have "met" some amazing and inspiring people via their blogs. I have come to respect writing in a way school never taught me, by being part of the Bloggerverse, and although it's been an experience littered with joy as well as pain, it's one I would trade.
I am thankful that because of blogging, I have a voice and an outlet in the world. I haven't been using it the way I always wanted and meant to, but I think that with this new-found gratitude, that may very well change.
I am thankful for my husband, who is always there when I need him, who always manages to come through for us somehow, even when it doesn't look promising. He works hard to take care of us, and because of him, I am free to sit at home and be a wife, mother, sister, aunt, friend and blogger.
I'm grateful that I posses skill in the kitchen and can still pull off a from-scratch homemade dinner like I did tonight (recipes to start to be posted as soon as I get my new blogging schedule worked out).
I'm grateful for my family and the people who love and accept me unconditionally, even if they don't always agree with me.
For the heart-to-heart Witchlet and I had tonight that seemed to bond our relationship even closer as we finally were able to relate to each other as mutual parents.
I am also so very grateful for my granddaughter. I got to spend some time enjoying the feeling of her moving tonight. It is a truly humbling experience to feel the stirrings of a new life inside the the life I created. It's a feeling that leaves me at a loss for words because it touches my soul so deeply. Watching the growth of my daughter's stomach as my grandchild has grown inside her has given me such a profound experience as a mother.
I'm thankful for late-night foot rubs, hot baths that smell of roses and gentle whispers in the dark. I'm grateful for a glass of good wine at the end of a long day and the exhausted satisfaction of a clean house.
I'm thankful for the future and all the promise it seems to hold, even if I have gotten somewhat impatient waiting for everything to come together. I have high hopes for our transition into the RV and am looking forward to learning a new type of lifestyle that I think will be satisfying in so many ways.
I am thankful for the guidance of the Goddess in my life. For the times she has challenged me, rewarded me, and punished me. In every challenge, regardless of if I passed or failed, I learned something valuable about myself, my relationships, my family and the world around me. Under her not always gentle hand, I continue to learn and grow.
I'm thankful for finally being able to realize fully that my life, and my path, are truly my own. I have often been overcome with guilt thinking I'm not doing this or that right because of someone else's views or opinions and I am learning to overcome that obstacle to personal happiness. I cannot live my life for others and those that ask or expect me to, don't truly care about my happiness and I'm starting to weed that type of people from my life.
As for my path, it is mine alone to walk. There are no set boundaries, rules or guidelines to what is "right" or "proper" for the way I celebrate my spirituality. That is between me and my Gods and no one else. It's ok to be me, and to do things my own way. That has been a hard-learned lesson, and I'm grateful that I'm finally starting to get it.
To be quite honest, the last few months have been particularly stressful in so many ways and for so many reasons. There has not been much gratitude in my attitude lately, and today was not a great day for me for a number of reasons, but sitting here, thinking over the things that I do have to be grateful for seems to have lifted a weight I didn't realize I was carrying until tonight. I think I could even get used to this whole "To Blessed to Be Stressed" attitude eventually. ;)
This is a weekly post that I believe I will find myself looking forward to immensely and again, I'm so very grateful to Cin from Witchy Rambles for her post today that inspired me to write this one. Make sure to stop by and give her a visit.
