Category Archives: grateful

This morning, a friend from Canada posted this youtube video and it was one of those… shut up and listen… moments. 

What do I have, not what I don’t have…..

I have a reasonably healthy family, all things considered.

I have a job that I really enjoy (that allows me the leisure of being able to work from home when I need to)

I have access to health care and the means to provide that to my family

I have friends (analog and digital) who are great, who listen, and who I can listen to.

I have MY health within reason

Even if you are the only car on the street and even if it is going to rain… and even if you are the current version of public transportation… getting a tree is a treat for everyone…

Virtually traveling all over the globe at 6 am is awesome.  The dog and I love watching Sunrise Earth… This morning it was Turkey.  Turkey is amazingly beautiful.

Yes, I am realistic enough to know that they don’t pick dumpy places wherever they are to film.  They don’t film the tin cans (oh wait… aluminum cans) or paper cups and empty sun screen bottles/tubes when they film sunrise on beaches.  They cut out the cow pooping when they are in Maine.  But they do a wonderfully peaceful (commercial free) job of showing off sunrises all over the world.

It is a wonderful way to wake up in the morning

There are things that you KNOW (in your head you know… but sometimes you don’t really remember in your heart) that it matters… whatever it is.

Today… I was reminded in a wonderful way that it matters.

It, in my case, was just the fact that I’m there and that I take the time to BE there.  Sometimes I get caught up in getting the job done and making sure that the less important things get done… but I realized today that my kids know that, no matter what I’m doing, I make sure that I’m there when they need me, even if they only need to know that I’m there… and that knowing is enough.

It made me smile… and it made me cry… both my babies told me that it matters… just the fact that they know that if they need me, I’m there… matters to them more than they may sometimes let on.

Today, I think it was the fact that I made the doctor appointment and the fact that I answered the phone… that I transfer the poetry and quotes from facebook to the poet’s blog… that I’m there to hold her when she seizes and to talk her down when she needs despirately to dump on someone.

I know that my mom doesn’t always know (in her head maybe, but sometimes I don’t know if she knows in her heart) how much it matters that she is there, if if “there” is 1500 miles away and how much it means to me to be able to be “there” for her too.

Today… I realized more than I think almost ever how much the little things really do mean to me and how much the little things really do mean…

It matter…. when everything is gray and swelly and depressing… it matters…

You know… It’s funny… how much a smile can mean.  It doesn’t even have to be a smile directed at anyone… just a simple smile.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember how beautiful some smiles are (they are used so rarely) but when they show up they make the sun shine.

And when I can be the one to inspire the smile, it makes the whole world magical.

Okay… so… this isn’t probably exactly the kind of “things I’m thankful for” kind of set of posts… but… well… whatever.

Today, I am most thankful for cold water… To swim in… to ease the sunburn that I ended up with yesterday… to drink on walks and after walks… to soak my tootsies in… even to soak my hat in to put it on my head.  Cold water is wonderful.

Yesterday we walked to the library in the morning.  It was a great walk… water got warm before it all got drunk, but it was wonderful walk… looking forward to similar walk this morning… when we got home I got a long cold drink and soaked in a cool (water doesn’t get cold from the tap, only cool) bath.

Amandya called when we were almost home from the walk and wanted to know if she could invite her friends to the pool… which is cool… so I went and hunted up my swim suit so I could go too (with her seizures not totally under control… I tend to be a tag-along when things like water are involved… and it turns out that I’m glad I did).  It was 98 degrees yesterday and the cold water I took to drink was good but jumping into the cool water was heavenly.

The sunburn… part if it came from the walk I have to admit… and part from swimming… part, though, from sitting beside her on the side of the pool where she was put when she was lifted out of the pool during her seizure.  Turns out it is a good thing I’m overly cautious.

Home… more cold water… another cool bath… and naproxin sodium…

It’s amazing how it feels when it slides down your throat… when it soaks your head in the heat… when it bites into the hot sweaty skin… it is way quicker to cool down than to warm up… even hot water takes longer to warm you up than cool/cold water takes to chill you down.

Okay, I absolutely love the smell of lavender.  I have lavender hand cream… I have lavender tea… and about three years ago, I planted a lavender plant in the flower bed in the back yard.

It was such a little thing when I planted it… one of those  tiny little pots from the herbs section of the grocery store or Walmart garden shop.  I didn’t hold out much hope of it growing into much (even though I have been told that I could make a broom straw grow green if I shoved it into the ground) because, lets face it, I live in central texas… it is HOT… and most years we don’t get a whole awful lot of rain.

The first year it had one lonely flower… which I picked and dried.

The second year it had maybe three flower stems.  Again… Picked and dried…

Tonight, I went out into the back yard and picked a hand full of stems (they are hanging in the kitchen in the window… a baggy around the flowers to catch them as they dry and fall off… ) and I should be able to get at least three more handfulls about the same size in the next couple days… It is full of blooms and the air is full of the smell of lavender.

It smells so nice, clean… relaxing.

It was SO worth the $4 I probably spent on it… and it is such a beautiful plant…right next to the rosemary that almost died but came back.