A grateful life is a life well lived. I don’t know where I heard this, maybe Oprah, but I totaly agree. Life is more colorful and wonderful if we have a grateful heart to see it with.

Today, I am starting this online gratitude journal because I want my life to be more fruitful and more empathic towards others. I am thankful today for taking the wrong public conveyance and ending up having an adventure.

I now know how to commute to a popular pet and retail store. At the end of my unplanned commute, I was greeted by a bevy of cut flowers on display. The sun was high in the sky but the steady breeze was cool. I couldn’ take a cab because I only had coins in my pocket but the adventure was so worth it!

1. Lotus flowers
2. The Diamond Sutra
3. Humility to ask
4. The information I need
5. Community
6. Honoring and letting go of ego
7. Our Onenesss
8. Hearing of an old friend doing amazing things
9. Practicing accepting all things
10. Honoring every path

1. God

2. Everything Cassie does

3. Mike and Patty providing a solution

4. A productive meeting

5. Cashews

6. A chair

7. A couple days of rain and then sun

8. Self care

9. David’s concern

10. Belle’s colorful drawings

1. Hiking with my husband in Cuyahoga Falls- the gorge is gorgeous:)
2. Baby smiles never ever lose their magic
3. Fresh fruit
4. The little things
5. When the three of us are together, smiling
6. Ava becoming more comfortable in her body
7. Or maybe I’m just learning her cues better:)
8. Drawing again
9. Our lovely neighbors
10. Fresh, summer air

Very Grateful for~

God’s love
Silhouettes
Jean’s list
the feeling of papaya between my fingers as I peel it
1 Peter 3:9

hearing a old song by a favorite band, Boston, while in the grocery store
twirling the cart around to the beat
pitching groceries into the cart in syncopation

getting a call back
a spooky conversation with the organic farmer-lady—so many interesting perspectives!

In a gentle way, you can shake the world~Gandhi

• Yard sales and items with which we might want to establish a relationship…
• …GPa’s nearly new VCR player for $2.50..lady who owned it upgraded to a blu-ray…
• …Thomas Kinkade puzzles; a great coffee table that I would have scooped up if I’d had a need for it.
• Alpine Animal Clinic/Hospital…Vets who love Pepper as if she was their own…
• …Pepper well again and came home to all clean toys and new tennis balls..Vets said we were “good parents” :)
• Belle’s artwork on her lists…so lovely, and fun!
• The organic baby rattle for Ava from Garrett…adorable!
• Very grateful for all of the wonderful lists by everyone in our WLG community….they make my day!!  Thank you!!
• Amanda auditioning for a national commercial..you go girl!
• “Many people are prone to look toward the next step in life and not appreciating the goodness in the PRESENT….enjoy today”  -Valedictory speaker at a high school graduating class.

1. Potato lentil soup for my husband
2. Emotions
3. Knowing myself better and better
4. Understanding patterns
5. The way I see things so clearly when eating a raw diet
6. Late afternoon rain
7. Turquoise
8. Inspiration
9. Ideas
10. This moment, to do anything I desire

1. God

2. A belatedly birthday list for you, David, although you came early, expected on the 20th you arrived on the 17th.  What was your hurry?  (I remember one of our neighbors saying to me, “Hey Garrett, when’s that baby due,” and when I answered, she said “that’s what you think.”)

3. Hope you enjoy 15, remember my brother telling me to, and I did somewhat

4. You and I are the same, you told me, with such insight

5. Your eclectic and synthetic knowledge

6. Your continuous improvement in school

7. Your laughter

8. Your internet activism

9. I know you mean what you say

10. Watching what you will do

Very Grateful for~

God’s patience
Lemon anything
The trust that prayers are being said
Dad’s continued resilience
Finishing a book that has had three library check-out extensions
Amazon’s free shipping
Garrett’s kind emails
Green Tea
vinegar in hot water (really does get the cloudiness off of glasses!)
The word “dollop”

“I learned that differences of opinion, quarrels, they’re not worth a hill of beans,” she said. “The thing that matters when all is said and done is love.” — Bonnie Jean Kimball, age 86

1. A fresh banana, orange & kiwi smoothie
2. Learning something new in the tech world
3. Making things easier for someone else
4. Music in the morning
5. Watching birds in the backyard
6. Creativity
7. Stillness
8. Quiet
9. Peace
10. “I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
    I awoke and saw that life was service.
    I acted and behold, service was joy.”
    Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)