I’ve started writing this evening’s blog a few times. Once again I am getting a late start and as sometimes happens, I am half asleep and needing to get my rest sooner rather than later. Today has been a fairly typical weekend day–I puttered around the house, had a 90-minute Skype call with a friend, talked to my daughter on the phone, before picking up and driving over to my sister’s house to help her begin to take down her Christmas decorations. It was good for me to get out of the house; I’d had a sense that perhaps I would otherwise have sat around all day accomplishing very little. And while one might suggest that that’s what one does on the weekends, for me it was a good idea to get out of the house.
I am grateful tonight for simple things and rather than write a longer post than I have energy for, I will simply list a few things for which I am grateful:
- I am grateful to have good friends in my life. Last weekend and this I’ve been able to spend time talking with and listening to friends, sharing details of our lives, giving and receiving advice. Though my friends are scattered around the country, technology allows us to connect face-to-face, or in the case of my best friend from college, via good old telephone.
- I am grateful that I have sisters who are my friends. Yesterday I had dinner with two of my three sisters, and today I was hanging out with my sister Ruth helping her dismantle Christmas and then have dinner with her and her family. I expect that sometime in the next week I’ll have a chance to visit my oldest sister, whom I haven’t seen since before Christmas. It’s a blessing to live close to the three of them. In addition to them I also have a few nieces and a nephew who all live in the greater DC area, some of whom I haven’t seen since I moved her. I’m looking forward to connecting with them.
- I live with a four-legged friend who constantly teaches me something about life and how I should approach it. Everything is a potential adventure and everyone she meets is a prospective friend. She greets virtually everyone with enthusiasm, even me when I come home from work. Her love is totally unconditional and she gives without holding back. I have a lot to learn about a lot of things, but she sets a good example for me every day. And yes, I can learn from a dog.
There are many other things I am grateful for. Many of them are the basic necessities of life like food, clean water, a roof over my head, safe transportation, a decent job, relatively good physical, emotional and mental health, and so many other things. I have learned not to take these things for granted, in part because there have been times throughout my life, including relatively recent times, when these things weren’t definite fixtures in my life. And while I still struggle periodically with a variety of issues, I know that I am blessed in more ways than I can count. And for that I am truly grateful.
