Grandma Henke

I’m always grateful for my blessings … but somehow the first of November my soul seems to fill with gratitude until I am almost overwhelmed at all of the good, wonderful things in my life.   Fall is my favorite time of the year … hands down.    Well, it starts my favorite time of the year.    Maybe it’s because Lynn and I were married in October but that’s when it starts.   By November, when I pull out the Christmas music, my soul feels warm and fuzzy and I been my reflective season.  It feels so good I try hard to protect it and not let the materialism of the season and the ugliness that can be found in the world interfere.  It feels so good that I can’t help but pray peace and gratitude can somehow dwell in every heart. 

This time of the year I always kind of gasp inside as I realize how quickly the year has gone by … how close it is to Christmas and how far from reaching my goals I still am.    This year is no exception, of course.    Here I am working madly on Christmas projects that I swore would be finished and wrapped by the end of the summer, pulling out my scriptures so I can finish the Book of Mormon before the year ends, and dreaming of the smaller sized clothes I could be wearing had I not procrastinated.    Let’s not even talk about the fact that I wanted to give out copies of my first book this year and it still needs the final edit, or that I let an entire season go by with only posting five or six times to my blog.

Big sigh …

Actually, it’s all okay because I have still had such a wonderful year and have accomplished other things I feel good about.     I mean, how can you feel like you failed when you’ve had such an incredible year?    Yes, we still have our ailments … infirmities, if you will.   It hurts the knees like heck to go from a sitting to a standing position, and fatigue and body pain are a constant in an otherwise uncertain world … but the great thing is that happiness comes anyway … if we allow it.   

It is important to acknowledge happiness and from whence it comes … so I am going to start a gratitude log at the end of each blog.   I will always include at least one thing I am grateful for that happened since my last blog, and two things I am just grateful for.    Some of the bloggers I have followed are doing something similar but I haven’t seen any "patents" on it so feel free to do it too, if you are so inclined. 

Gratitude:

1.    I am thankful for the comfortable, genuine compatibility and love that Lynn and I share.  

2.    I am grateful for the magic of an ipod filled with albums and albums of beautiful music.  

3.    I am grateful that my little furry pal is able to tell us when she needs to go potty.    It has been a much easier trip because of that.   She has been such a good traveler.

4.    Today I am grateful we have such a nice, warm and cozy home to shelter us from the wind and rain outside.