I chose to do a daily gratitude post for the entire month of November, because it would help me 1. focus on something positive daily, and 2. think about all the good in my life, rather than things that were out of my control. It fulfilled both requirements! And interestingly enough, President Russell Nelson broadcasted a worldwide message about the "healing" power of gratitude the week before Thanksgiving. He asked everyone to do daily gratitude posts on social media for 7 days leading up to Thanksgiving, adding the hashtag #givethanks, in order to spread positive messages to combat all the negativity online. I felt so validated in my own personal quest, when I realized that the prophet testified of its importance, too!
Every day, I thought about what I wanted to post, and reflected on what I was grateful for. It was very rewarding for me, and so fun when others joined in the gratitude challenge for one week, too! I told myself that I'd started a trend--because I'd done it before it was even the "popular" thing to do! ;) I'm happy to share this list in its entirety:
NOVEMBER 1: I am thankful to live where I do! I love my home and the life we've created in Salmon, Idaho.
NOVEMBER 2: I'm thankful for vacations I've had to beaches along the oceans of the world. I often think of this quote when I'm lucky enough to see the ocean: "The cure for anything is salt water--sweat, tears, or the sea." (Isak Denesen)
NOVEMBER 3: I'm grateful to exercise my right to vote--especially this year on the 100th anniversary of women in the U.S. having that right!
NOVEMBER 4: I'm so very thankful for my smart, strong, active, healthy, hard-working sons. I love the men that they're growing up to be! They make the world a better place, and they inspire me to do better and be better as a result!
NOVEMBER 5: Working 125+ miles from my home gives me the opportunity to spend about 8 hours a week (on average) commuting. One-third of my drive is out of radio reception and cell phone service, so it gives me a LOT of time each week to spend in solitude. I mostly spend that time in silence; self-reflecting or coming up with creative projects or working through emotions. The drive is pretty monotonous, but it also changes daily: in the spring and fall, I get to witness a lot of sunrises and sunsets. Today I'm grateful for the beauty I witness on my commute, for all of the reminders of God's love and the majesty of His creations, and for the peace I feel as a result of His glorious works during the time when I am completely alone as I drive.
NOVEMBER 6: I'm so thankful to own a reliable car that gets me safely to and from work. We bought a car 2.5 years ago, and since we knew we would be putting a lot of miles on it, we purchased our first-ever car warranty with it--good for 100,000 miles or 5 years. I am only halfway through the 5 year plan, but have already put 90,000 miles on it!! In addition to my weekly commute, this car has taken us to Canada, Mexico, and across several states as well! It's been a good investment!
NOVEMBER 7: I'm beyond grateful for my husband. Happy birthday, babe.
NOVEMBER 9: I'm extremely grateful for this amazing group of ladies in Mud Lake who have befriended me. It started off by playing Dominoes once a month, but the friendship and camaraderie in our group has blossomed and has extended far beyond ladies' game night. We've gone on trips together, camped together, celebrated birthdays together, laughed and cried together, and this group of ladies has been instrumental in helping me feel like I belong here during these past 3+ years as I've lived on my own during the work week. They are the best group of lady friends I've ever been a part of. I'm truly blessed to know them and I cherish my relationship with them!
NOVEMBER 10: I'm grateful to have a wood-burning stove as the main heat source at our home in Salmon. My rental house in Mud Lake has propane heat, and all winter long on the nights that I'm away from home, I really miss the radiant heat that the wood stove provides. We've had this particular wood stove for 10 years--it came from my childhood home when my parents remodeled, and we had it installed in our new manufactured home just as our first winter in it was approaching. It's been a wonderful addition to our home!
NOVEMBER 11: I'm blessed to belong to a family of Veterans...my grandpa, my dad, and my brother have served our country in 3 different wars, and I'm proud of them and their service. Today at the school Veteran's Day Program, I teared up looking at the Veterans in attendance and thinking of my own family members and their contributions to keep our country safe, to protect others, and to fight with honor.
NOVEMBER 12: I'm grateful for music. It's definitely a part of me: I have loved music since I was a little girl and it is still a very integral part of my life today. Music fill me with emotion. Music helps me escape. Music brings me joy. Music relaxes me. Music speaks to my heart. I'm blessed to have the ability to sing and play the piano, and I enjoy sharing my love of music with others.
NOVEMBER 13: As I was sitting on my couch tonight wondering what to do for my daily gratitude post, I gazed at the dog who was laying at my feet...and I suddenly realized how thankful I am for our dog Tiki. She has been a part of our family for over 7 years. She is a Corgi/Collie cross that resembles a short furry bear with a petticoat in the winter and a fox in the summer after she gets her hair cut. She is patient, kind, quiet, and loyal. She rarely barks and loves to be pet by everyone, including strangers. She especially likes Josh to scratch her belly and always rolls over for him to do that. She has a unique relationship with our cat: she loves the cat, but the cat just tolerates her. She doesn't play fetch, but loves to lay under tight spaces including the piano, the deck, chairs, and tables. She always happily greets us when we arrive home, which I love. She also follows the boys on their bike rides and runs, and does her best to keep up with them and protect them. In fact, we nearly lost her last fall after she got ran over when she was out running with Kanyon. I'm grateful she's still with us today.
NOVEMBER 15: I'm so grateful for the ability to be self-reliant. This fall, we processed 2 deer and 1 elk ourselves, in addition to over 100 ears of corn, 5 pumpkins, and 40 cups of raspberries. Our freezer is full of a lot of food that we have grown or hunted, and that is such an amazing feeling! There was a time when we weren't like this; I remember feeling inspired by some friends of ours after the twins were born--their lifestyle was so foreign to me, but I wanted to learn how to live more like them. It took many years of working at it to figure it out, but it's been worthwhile for our family to learn to work together to put food on the table.
NOVEMBER 18: I am truly blessed to come from a line of women who have used their hands to make priceless, cherished family heirlooms. I just finished teaching my 3rd graders a unit about traditions, and for every story in the unit, I was able to bring items from home that are examples of my family's traditions and represent my own heritage, and the items directly correlated to what we read and learned about. I loved showing the treasures to my class and talking to my students about my family. I showed quilts made by my mother and my Grandma Perkins, an example of my Grandma Rose's embroidery, and my Grandma Rose's knitted dolls. I love that each of these wonderful women in my family learned these skills, used their hands to bring beauty into the world, and shared their talents with me!
NOVEMBER 21: I'm grateful for games. I have loved games since my neighbors the Greers introduced me to SkipBo and Scattergories when I was a young teenager. Games have brought my siblings, my kids, my friends, and I together. They have brought me a LOT of laughs and happy memories (and a few bouts of anger and frustration too--I rarely play Scattergories or Monopoly anymore as a result!!). I'm grateful for my family and friends who are always willing to play games with me!
NOVEMBER 27: I'm grateful for my blog. I enjoy writing and I love taking photos, so blogging has been a great way for me use both skills. It's been a creative outlet for me and I've used it to document our family's life. I constantly use it as a reference to find photos, look up dates, and to help remember what we've experienced in the past. I used to be a better, more creative writer, but over time, my writing style has become more narrative. It's not as interesting to read nowadays, but it continues to serve the purpose of documenting our family's life together (even though I'm usually a little behind in posting). At the end of each year, I print the posts from that year into a hardbound book. We love perusing the books when they arrive! It's fun to recount our memories, and the books serve as permanent keepsakes of our family's history, too. The website is: www.salmontolmanfam.blogspot.com.
NOVEMBER 28: I'm grateful for tender mercies; the moments when I feel Heavenly Father's love for me. I don't experience them often, but when I do, they make an impact on me. One such moment happened over a year ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. On my 40th birthday, I started a "40 Things to Do When I'm 40" list. I began working on crossing off items on my list that very day. One of my goals was to go to a new temple, so I attended the Cedar City temple all by myself that afternoon. For about an hour before I did the temple session, I was questioning myself: why did I think it would be a good idea to spend my birthday alone, far away from my home and my family? I continued to feel lonely and doubted my birthday choices even as I was serving in the temple. During the last part in the temple session, my helper turned out to be Fred Adams. As soon as I saw him, I gasped and said "I know you!", to which replied with a smile, "I know you do". And that was it! However, that moment filled me with such delight! I knew that God was mindful of me, and it affirmed to me that what I was doing was right. I first met Fred Adams in 1994 when I went with our high school group to Shakespeare Competition. Fred was the Shakespeare Festival founder and is a bit of a celebrity in Cedar City. I ran into him occasionally during my college days at SUU, but I hadn't seen him since. He died this past February. I am so grateful for my last run-in with him, and for that moment when I was acutely aware of God's love for me. I felt it and it filled my entire being with love and hope. I'm so grateful for tender mercies in my life.
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