Today I was so grateful for the new tires we got put on the car last week after I "bumped" the curb .  We are having snow and ice and the roads (not to mention some drivers) are horrible!  But with my new tires I can't believe the world of difference when driving in the weather!  Clearly I needed new tires.  :)

I am so grateful for useful tips that come my way!  I hear them on Facebook and Pinterest, from the mouths of people I know, through articles, etc.  I'm grateful for them because usually they are kind of "duh" things but once I hear one that really impresses on me I don't forget it and I implement it.  For example, "Clean as you go."  Duh right?  Yes but I didn't really practice that well until cooking with my sister-in-love, Rebecca, a few years ago.  It was the way she said it that made it stick with me and now I do my best to clean as I go, especially in the kitchen!  What useful tip are you grateful for?

I know, kind of weird right?  But I'm super stuck so I'm leaning on Ann Voscamp's Joy Dares today.  And one of them was 3 Gifts found in Dirt. Now, if you know me at all you know I don't like dirt.  I really, really, really don't like dirt. So this one intrigued me.  What gifts can I be grateful for...in dirt?!  Well turns out there ARE some gifts in dirt that I am grateful for.  Flowers, vegetables, and...and...well I'm stuck again but it's pretty big for me to see a gift coming from dirt so to mention two is huge progress!  What about you?  What other gifts come from dirt?  

Today I am grateful for a two hour delay.  Sometimes I am grumpy about them (like when they are called for wind, and no I am not kidding!) but days like today I am grateful for them.  See my husband gives me a road report since he leaves for work before we leave for school and work.  The two hour delay gives me a chance to mentally prepare myself to drive on dangerous roads.  While I'm doing that I'm also given the chance to do some dinner prep, catch up on some laundry, walk a little longer on the treadmill, or catch up on a TV show.  Oh, did you think I slept in?  Yeah no, ain't no Mama got time for that!  But I am grateful for the delay and the chance to catch up on some things.

Today I was grateful for my Mama's instinct. You Mom's know what I'm talking about. That "thing" inside of you that sounds like a warning bell or waves like a red flag and alerts you to something about your child. Well my bell rang and the flag waved about a month ago while watching of all things an infomercial on some shoe inserts.  (Don't ask me why we were watching this infomercial but somehow the hub landed on it while flipping through channels and we just stayed there!)  This infomercial made me take heed to the "thing" in me that said I needed to get my youngest redhead's feet checked.  So I heeded and today we went to the Pediatric Orthopedic Doc.  And I am so grateful we did. I am so grateful for that instinct I had because it turns out she does need so correction and had I not brought her in now and we waited "x" number of years she would have knee pain and probably need knee replacements!  But since I heeded the Mama's ins

Today the hub and I spent not one but TWO gift cards we had received.  One we received, and no I am not kidding, almost 2 years ago from some friends!  The other I won at my company Christmas party back in December. Both gift cards took us to an area of our city that we don't often get to (thus the almost 2 year wait on redeeming the one) and it was fun. It was fun to enter into a store we hadn't been before and imagine what our sweet friends were thinking for us when they got us this gift card. (The Olive Tap in Manitou, so fun!  I got a Sorrento Lemon Olive Oil and a Jalapeno Olive Oil - delish!)  It was fun to go to a restaurant we usually wouldn't and have a different kind of dining experience than we normally do.  (The Mona Lisa Fondue Restaurant in Manitou, delicious food!)  We were driving home and I felt grateful that we had a fun, out of the norm for us, date and I felt spoiled by it all.

Today a friend and I cooked up a couple of soups together.  I found myself grateful for the opportunity to cook with a friend. Maybe it's that whole "many hands make light work" philosophy or maybe it's the companionship or maybe it's the comfort of cooking with someone else who can kind of read your mind and you can read theirs and the dance around the kitchen is fluid.  Maybe it's all of those things! But I was grateful for the time we spent boiling this, chopping that, stirring this, tasting that.  

I am grateful today for flexibility. That of my boss with me and my needy self these days (appointments and car repair ruled the week this week!) and also for continued lessons for me in flexibility. I like to deceive myself and think I am flexible but let's face it.  I'm too Type A for my own good and for flexibility. :) But since I am aware of how inflexible I can be, I work at letting myself be flexible. So while my boss has had to practice some flexibility with me this week, I have had to practice it with myself! And I'm grateful because as I learn what I need to be from these opportunities I grow in my character.

Just in case you might not believe me about a lack of gratitude being linked to discontentment and ungratefulness, a friend shared a blog post from someone else today that I found to be a good continuing reminder of how vital having a Gratitude Attitude is to our overall emotional health. Click here for the post.

My gratitude for auto repair shops specifically extends to the one we frequent and love. Today, in the freak storm we got in the midst of an otherwise beautiful weather week, I slid into a curb by no choice of my own and broke my car.  :(  It kinda sucked.  It was still driveable, not safely but whatever, so we got it over to our guy. We love our auto mechanic, he's honest and fair in price.  I'm grateful for him because he can do what my husband and I definitely can't fix cars.  And since we seem to have that need more often than we would like I am grateful for those who can do it for us.

It goes against our prideful nature to apologize and then I take it a step further and am saying I am actually grateful for opportunities to apologize!  And I'm being truthful.  I am grateful for the times when I have a responsibility to apologize for my actions and/or words.  I am grateful that opportunities for humbling myself come my way.  It would be easy to claim (they would be false claims) that I am above apologizing, it would be easy to blame shift (which many do) so that I never need to apologize.  But in behaving in those ways I deny myself the opportunity to grow in character, I damage relationships, and I live on an island of self-deception.  So while it may go against my prideful nature to apologize I am grateful when an opportunity arises to practice it, even though I am usually regretful and chagrined that I engaged in a behavior that made the opportunity arise!  

Since I choose to shave I am grateful for razors!  I'm glad for the choices.  I suppose I'm also grateful that I choose to shave, I know my husband is - haha!

While I stand by my oft-uttered statement, "Parenting is not for the faint of heart" and while I have written about it before (click here ), I AM grateful for the opportunity and the responsibility of parenting.  It is a role in my life that has stretched me, works to sanctify me, humbles me, fulfills me, and has taught me a lot about myself and about relationships in general.  I am grateful for the successes and for the mistakes I make.  I'm grateful that I was chosen to be a Mom to two redheaded girls who make my husband and I feel like we won the parent lottery.

Ugh.  This is one of those Gratitude Attitudes that I'm attempting to take my bad attitude about something and find the gratefulness for it. :) At the end of the day I am grateful for the "stupid" treadmill that sits in my basement and I've been using as of late. I kinda hate it but I'm grateful for it because it's 1) in close proximity, 2) free (truly, we didn't buy it, it was given to us!), and 3) is aiding me on getting healthy.  So I'm grateful for it...I guess. *wink* Speaking of walking (What? Did you think I ran on that treadmill?! Ha.  Perish the thought.)...check out this diagram of the health benefits for walking 3x a week for 30 minutes.  It's crazy and oh so do-able!

A lot of people aren't grateful for silence.  It makes them squirm, it makes them feel unsettled, it unnerves them.  Why is that?  I think it is because we have filled our days, and nights, with so much noise from so many devices and other things that we don't even know what silence is any longer or what to do with it.  But I am grateful for silence.  I am grateful that sometimes I sit in my house and literally the only sound I hear is the faint ticking of our clock or the wind blowing outside.  That's about as close to silence as I'm going to get. But I'm grateful for it because my days are too noisy.  In fact a while back, on the previous 365, I ruminated about silence.  Click here to read that.  I read it and noted that not much has changed in my thoughts about silence since I wrote that.  I still crave it and when it presents itself I am profoundly grateful for it, as is my soul.

A fire truck went racing by me on my way home from work this evening and it struck me that I have yet to express in the Gratitude Attitude my gratefulness for emergency personnel - firefighting and police.  Without their willingness to uphold order, investigate crimes, promote public safety, and a myriad of other duties for the citizens our our cities and towns we would be rather chaotic.  They respond without hesitation to dangerous scenes and place themselves in the line of fire (literally and figuratively) to preserve safety.

I am incredibly grateful for my eyesight.  I try really hard not to take it for granted.  I'm so grateful for what my eyes have been able to see and take in throughout my lifetime. Everyday I get to see colors, people I love, landscapes that inspire me, words printed on a page for me to enjoy, etc. In an effort to be more aware, and thankful, for my senses today I took time to really pay attention to all I was able to see.

I know it's very "first world" but I am super grateful for the Food Network.  Because of it my cooking skills have increased ten-fold.  I have grown from Velveeta Mac 'n Cheese and Hamburger Helper to complex dishes with flavors I had never even heard of growing up!  It's helped me be brave in experimenting with spices, go "rogue" from the recipe every so often (not so easy for a Type A let me tell you), and be willing to expand my food experiences into other cultures outside of the mid-west fare I grew up on.  Seriously, the Food Network introduced me to a whole new and fantastic world of cooking and I, and I'm hoping my family, am so grateful.

It might seem like I "must" like the performing arts since one of my daughters is a performing artist but long before she came along I loved the performing arts and actually I am grateful for them.  I am grateful for the opportunity it provides people (kids and adults alike) to use their imaginations, to interact in ways that are entertaining, to be able to operate in areas of giftedness.  I am grateful for schools that continue to see the value in keeping performing arts as part of their curriculum. Too many schools have removed it from their school because of cost and because some schools have become short-sighted and don't understand the value of raising and educating a well-rounded human.  (I wrote about this a while back, click here for that blog.)  I am grateful to watch kids, one of them being my own, bloom into an artist.  Tonight was my daughter's school Showcase (replaced the Talent Show) and we got to see dancers, singers, a magic act, a short skit, guitar

Specifically Greek and Australian and specifically Chobani and Noosa.  I'm slightly obsessed.  Yeah, yeah I don't need nor want to hear about the sugar content.  I know thankyouverymuch.  I don't care. Overall it is a healthier option than the Starbursts I could snack on instead. Right? Right.  I am so grateful for the delicious opportunity of yogurt. My taste buds are as grateful as I am. :)

I have a love/indifferent relationship with my Kindle. I bought it originally because I knew when I went overseas I couldn't take a bunch of books with me, the Kindle (or any eReader) solves this problem.  So I got it for our trips.  Over the course of time I have also come to appreciate the games I play on it. :) But at the end of the day I love a real book - the feel of the pages turning, the smell of a book, the weight of it in my hand. However, I am grateful for my Kindle.  It's backlit so I can read in the dark should I so choose.  And on occasion I have until recently when I am reading in the dark pretty much everyday.  I am walking on the treadmill in the early morning hours of each day and I can't turn on the overhead light because it is connected to the oldest redhead's bedroom. So it occurred to me - the Kindle!  It's backlit so I can read while I walk. Perfect.  And it is perfect, I'm so grateful because I need something to keep my mind off the walkin

Have you ever been in the middle of something and realized you've been doing it wrong but it is too late to turn it around and fix it?  So then you have to figure out a workable solution?  This could apply to cooking, baking, an organizational task, a work task, parenting, make up application, etc.  When the workable solution works out and even takes it a step further and improved the original thing I call it a happy accident because suddenly those nerves that it would be awful turn to butterflies of happiness that 1) it worked and 2) it's even better!  I love happy accidents and actually I am grateful for them. I think we all need happy accidents to help us expand our boxes that we can get stuck in.  Some of my happy accidents have led me to taking greater risks with cooking, etc.  I'm grateful for the happy accidents that give me reward from a "mistake" and help me to grow in other ways.  Have you had a happy accident lately that made you grateful?

Oh I am so grateful for weekends.  I need them since I work outside of the home in addition to being a wife and Mom.  I became even more grateful for weekends when I started working full time back in the spring and my time was cut even shorter. As the days and weeks go on here's what I am most grateful for about the weekends: time with my spiritual community, time for just me, a chance to catch up on the house and all the details it takes to run a home and work outside of the home, space to breathe, a respite from co-workers (yes there are some names of those I need a weekend break from, no I am not going to name them. *grin*), a chance to just regroup.  I got up this morning a little gleeful that it was Friday and the weekend is upon us, I felt so grateful for the weekend.

I love art.  Probably not, okay for sure not, all art but a lot of it.  I can certainly find an appreciation for the talent it takes for art I don't necessarily like overall.  I love visiting the art museum and wandering around a wing.  I go to a different wing every time I go.  In NYC when we go to The Met, which we try to do every time we are in the city for a good amount of time, we choose a different wing every time so eventually we may get through the whole museum! (Although I have heard of people who have grow up in the city going to that museum their whole life and still haven't gotten through it all!  It's a brilliant place, I adore it.)  Here in Colorado, the DAM offers free admission the first Saturday of every month.  The oldest redhead and I would go for a day, take a different wing each time we went, and wander and get our fill.  I'm grateful for art because of the expression it prompts. It prompted the artist to express and it prompts an expression in me.

For as long as I can remember I have been grateful for dusk.  Something about the sky and its colors, something about the way the day is winding down sets me at ease.  I begin to breathe a little slower, to unwind from the day that was all go since daybreak .  At dusk, if only for a minute or two, I feel the softness of the world that surrounds me and I breathe deep with gratefulness.

*GASP* A Type A who is grateful for structure?!  Say it ain't so! Yeah, yeah this one comes as no surprise to those who know me well.  But stick with me, those of you who don't feel so grateful for structure, and maybe I can get you to at least consider it. :) Here's why I am grateful for structure - we need it, no matter if we are Type A, B, C, or D. Everyone needs some kind of structure in their life.  It might look different for each of us but it provides a foundation upon which to stand each day.  It gives us accountability, a direction to go toward, a framework in which to build our days from.  Oh sure, we can each go a day or two without structure but examine yourself closely after a couple days of drifting about and see if you don't feel a little at loose ends without having lived out those days without whatever kind of structure works best for you.  Stop thinking of structure as a bad thing, start seeing it as the helpful thing that it is.  It isn't a cookie

It sounds so "first world" but I am very grateful for my sunglasses. I am light sensitive and without my sunglasses I am pretty miserable in the bright sunshine. I remember being a little girl and squinting and dreading having to be in the bright sunshine because it hurt my eyes.  I don't know when I started wearing sunglasses but I can tell you that once I started I never stopped. I am so grateful for them.  And these days, thanks to age, my sunglasses also serve as correction for my blurry distance. :)

Shelter is great but a furnace to heat the shelter is pretty great too.  I was thinking tonight about being in shelter that wasn't heated. To be protected from the elements can be the difference between life and death but eventually the body is going to need something to heat that shelter.  So every time I heard the furnace kick on during this cold day, and heading into what is going to be a frigid night, I was grateful...and then I was prayerful for those that have neither shelter nor furnace in this weather.  Prayerful that they would find a place to dwell and be warm.

Ugh.  This is one of those Gratitude Attitudes that  I am trying to swing around in my brain as a positive and a gratitude!  :) Here's the facts, I really hate to sweat.  Really really hate it. It makes me cranky and uncomfortable.  And I sweat a lot when I exercise.  It's so gross.  I also really hate exercise.  I do.  I know, I know.  It's good for me, it's necessary, blah, blah, blah.  I'd rather read. I'm just being honest. But I am grateful for exercise, I'm grateful that when I do take advantage of it and practice it that my body is moving, calories are burning, and probably a whole bunch of toxins are being released in all the sweating I do.  I'm grateful there are about a gazillion different kinds and types of exercise so I'm bound to find one I might actually enjoy someday!

I'm grateful today for the sense of touch.  For the nerve receptors that convey to us pain or pleasure.  I am always heartbroken to hear of people who have tactile impairments.  Sense of touch isn't just important for the hugging and the pleasurable things but it also serves as a warning to us in regards to pain (heat/burning, etc).  Just like our other senses, we don't think too much about touch until we lose it or it becomes damaged somehow.  How about you?  How often have you thought about touch and been grateful you have it?

I'm grateful for good shoes today.  Shoes that support my aging arches *grin* and pad my feet from the hard ground.  I'm grateful for shoes that help me walk distances and give me support when I'm standing still for long periods of time.  I don't take the fact that I have access to good shoes lightly.  I am all too aware of people around the world who have no shoes at all and no hope of having shoes, much less good ones. I'm grateful for good shoes and I look for ways to help those who need them as well get them.

It's admittedly kind of lame that I am pulling the "beginnings" card on the first day of a new year but it's my blog and I can do what I want, even be lame if that's what I choose!  :)  Last year, when the 365 focus was different, I also did something on beginnings.  Just call me predictable.  But doesn't the first day of a new set of 365 days make *you* think of beginnings?  Well regardless. I am grateful for beginnings.  They provide us with fresh chances to do things differently.  They give us new opportunities, new relationships, perhaps even new life.  The beginning of something is always a bit painful at first.  You have to settle into new things and figure out what needs to begin.  But once you do that the beginning of something holds a sweetness that is enhanced by people and experiences.  Sometimes beginnings are tough and not so sweet, and sometimes they never turn sweet.  I'm still grateful for even those because I know I have something to lear

I am grateful for games that bring people together to interact mostly without electronics or technology involved.  Over the course of the 10 days that my brothers, sister in loves, nephew, and niece were in town visiting we played games.  We rolled dice for Farkle, we flipped an iPad up or down for "Heads Up?!", we got cramps in our hands from holding 13 or more cards for Hand & Foot.  We laughed, we chatted, we got competitive, we bonded.  I feel so grateful for those little moments that happened through some game play.

I'm not very good at playtime.  (This may or may not come as a surprise to *you*.  Pst, I'm being just a wee bit sarcastic.)  I'm too much of a "do-er" to be good at playtime.  This doesn't mean I don't recognize the value in playtime, I'm just not very good at it.  But today I was grateful that I allowed myself space for playtime with my nephew.  I just decided to let go of myself and play with him and we had a great time!  I have made these letter bags for him and I to discover together.  Each bag focuses on a letter of the alphabet and the items in the bag, be it pictures or actual items, start with that letter.  We opened "F" today and I had put a small flashlight in there for him.  So we turned on the flashlight and went exploring in all the dark places of Papa and Gma's house and then we jumped on a bed in the dark with the flashlight. And I was grateful for playtime with my sweet boy.

I'm kind of obsessed with kitchen gadgets.  So is my brother, Brad, as his fiance is quickly finding out. *grin* Set me lose in a place like Bed, Bath, and Beyond - Williams Sonoma - any store that sells kitchen gadgets - Pampered Chef - etc and I can always find at least one thing I need, that will be helpful to the cooking and baking I love to do.  :)  But seriously I am grateful for several of my kitchen gadgets as they have made my life a lot easier in food prep.  Here's a few gadgets that I am especially grateful for, as is my husband!  My food processor.  I LOVE IT.  My little mini-chopper.  A good set of knives.  My Kitchen-Aid mixer.  I LOVE IT.  I also have a juicer, a zester, and a garlic press that are oh so handy.  :)  What about you?  Do you have any kitchen gadgets that you are grateful for because they save you time?

I've alluded to smelling things already but I've never actually focused on just the actual sense of smell.  What a wondrous thing!  It gives us pleasure, it warns us away from something (I'm thinking skunks), it prompts other senses to kick in.  I love walking into a place that has coffee brewing and something baking, the smell is divine.  Sometimes the sense of smell tells me who was just in the space I have moved into - people sometimes have a very strong signature scent/smell.  Good or bad sometimes what I smell transports me to a memory of a place, a person, or an experience.  Sense of smell is one of those things that I think most of us take for granted until we don't have it any longer.  Maybe today we could pay more attention to the gift of the sense of smell and inhale the world around us.  

I'm grateful for the word of God.  Maybe that seems obvious or stupid or "too easy" for the Gratitude Attitude but I am.  And today I decided to share 3 specific scriptures that I am especially grateful for in my life.  What are yours? 1 Kings 19:11-13 (I also wrote about this particular portion of scripture awhile back, click here .) Isaiah 26:3 Philippians 1:6

I'm not good at endings.  I don't generally appreciate or feel grateful when something I love ends, whether that is a relationship, TV show, movie, or book.  In the past few years I have slowly been learning to see the good in endings and see that not all things come to a permanent end, perhaps just a temporary one.  For example, each time I see my bestie Jodi the time seems too short and it comes to a temporary end.  It makes me feel a little grumpy on the inside.  But the past couple of years I have decided to quit being grumpy on the inside and make the most of the time we do get, to be grateful for that time and make it about quality instead of quantity. And then I choose to be grateful that when our time comes to an end it is temporary because we have been friends for 33 years so I know there will be a next time.  When a good book ends I am learning to quit being grumpy about it and be grateful for the story I was able to read.  You get the idea.  I'm choosing to look

I was thinking today about being grateful for anticipation.  Sometimes I am and other times I anticipate with dread.  But as I step back from the dread moments of it and look at it more closely I realize I am grateful for it in all forms.  Anticipation gives me something to look forward to, something to prepare for, something to think about.  Anticipation can be delicious and butterflies-in-the-stomach inducing.  It can bring relief, solutions, answers, closure.  I'm choosing to look at it in a new and broader way.

I appreciate a good story.  That may seem obvious given my love for reading but I also appreciate good stories told through film as well as in print.  I appreciate a good story that also happens to be true.  I appreciate a good story that isn't true but could be.  I am grateful for storytellers.  In fact, if you think about it, we all are storytellers.  Each of us is living a life that is telling a story.   Don't be afraid to tell it .