So, I've Been Thinking...

I've got to get back into writing. I've had this blog for a year, and this will be my first post. I've started a few blogs here and there before and let them go by the wayside. I read and like plenty of blogs, and have been inspired by some (more about that in another post).

Anyway, for my first post in this blog, I think I want to list some things that I find to be positive in my life, things that I'm thankful for, regardless of the fact that Thanksgiving is a few months away (is that all? Already??).

1) My kids and my husband
I have a lot to be grateful for here. There's nothing better than seeing your children smile, hearing them laugh, kicking their butts because they're fighting/screaming/crying/biting/drawing on the walls/spitting up on you right after a shower/eating an entire bottle of gummy vitamins and prompting a call to the poison control center at 6 am and loving them unconditionally anyway. It's good stuff. They never fail to make me smile. And the husband? Last week, he washed a load of dishes (never mind that his idea of a "load" of dishes is a plate, two cups, and a fork), and then went to the store to get dog food. Two minutes after he left I hear his key in the door, and while I'm looking on in surprise to see him and wondering what he forgot, he marches over to the top of the fridge, grabs his wedding ring that he put there while washing the dishes, puts it on, gives me a kiss, points at the ring on his finger, and walks out the door without a word. Come on now, I don't care who you are, that's sweet. He may be a pain in the rear sometimes (like when he threw an entire toddler bed across the room a few years ago when he was having trouble building it, or when he broke our daughter's window while helping her "clean her room" right before my dad showed up for a visit), but he's my pain in the rear, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

2) Health 
Pretty self explanatory. Mine is improving as I pay more attention to it, and that's always a good thing. Losing my grandma this year made me think a lot more about what I put into my body and how I want to take care of it so I can be healthy and accomplish all I want to do in this life. As far as family, most of mine is doing pretty well, with a few exceptions, so positive thoughts and love to them.

3) Things are difficult, but (almost) always end up working out in the end...
This is something I'm learning more and more each year. It's funny how priorities shift with the passage of time, and what once seemed important doesn't matter at all. I like to think of my life with a few different mantras--'Prepare for the worst, but hope for the best,' and my life, as well as myself as a person--'It takes both sunshine and rain to make a Rainbow.' I'm liking my late 20s. I'm learning a lot more about human nature. I'm growing as a human being, a student, a wife, and a mom. My thought process is evolving, and I'm learning to take some things in stride, to fight more passionately for others, and to stay true to myself.

4) I'm a life long learner, and I love it
When I was in ELP (many school districts refer to it as TAG), we studied the model of the life long learner. It was something we were taught to aspire to. I always wondered how I would accomplish this, because it seemed so straightforward: I would graduate high school, go to college, get a job, and the ways of the world would automatically bestow themselves upon my brain by the time I was an adult. (Go ahead, you can laugh at me--but I'll bet at least a few of you thought this way too). The things I mentioned in #3 are things that I'm still learning, but I do mean that in the classroom sense, too. I've gone back to school so many times that I should hold a Ph.D. Oh well. I've learned a lot in these many years, and one of them is that I have a TON of interests. I think (and I hope) that I'm going to have at least a few careers in my lifetime. And that excites me, and makes me look forward to the future.

There are a lot more things for me to be grateful about, and I'm sure I'll write about those in coming posts, as well as discover new ones along the way. I'll tell you one more thing I'm grateful for before I go:

5) Each new Day, even the Rainy ones...