Give Thanks - Everything!

I have spent the month looking into my life and finding things that I am grateful for.  It comes down to the fact that I am just so thankful for everything I have in my life.  I am so lucky and I hope that everyone I love and makes me happy knows just how much I am grateful and how much I value them.

I am so thankful to be living with Jake and be so in love with him.  I never knew what this would feel like and it is amazing.  In the quiet moments when it is just him and I all snuggled up, I finally understand the word love.  It's wonderful and I hope we have a long life together.

I am so thankful for my family.  I haven't always been thankful for them and have taken for granted that I had them in my life.  But, through everything, I know I am so lucky to have a strong support system behind me that love me for who I am and will celebrate with me when I win and pick me up when I fall.  Dad, you are a rock.  Mom, you have always fought for me.  Caitlin, I have never felt like someone was completely in my corner and loving me as you have.  Jak, you bring fun and warmth to this family.  Geoff, I look up to you and I know you are a quiet strength that I can lean on.  Riley, I see most of myself in you and I have so loved seeing the person you have become.

I am so thankful for the furry, four-legged members of my family.  Whitman is my dog through and through and I love that.  Theo makes me laugh and when he snuggles it is a delight in my life.  Jeanine is the biggest goof and she always cheers me up.  And I would not be who I am or where I am without the dogs in my past.  Vallie and Gerani are the angels on my shoulder that I miss everyday.

I am thankful for the friends I've made and kept over the years.  Friendships are not something I'm stellar at but I am so grateful for the ones I have in my life.  Caitlin, from cradle to grave forever.  No matter where we are and what we are doing, you are my best friend.  Kathleen, we've had to figure things out but I know you'll always be in my heart as a lifelong friend.  Sarah, I never forget where I've come from and you were there.  Sean, my fun time friend; move back so we can hang out again!  Ryan, I am so happy you came into my life like a ray of kick ass sunshine.  Amanda, you are weird and we are weird together; priceless.  Shay, dog geek and regular geek, enough said.  Astrid, brave enough to take a chance with me and also sharing in my geekdom.  And to all other friends who have come and gone, I am so thankful for every moment.

I am thankful for the experiences I've had in my life.  Traveling, learning, and just experiencing the wild things.  I've backpacked Europe.  I've been to Thailand in a 5 star resort, petted tigers and rode elephants.  I've been on a cruise and tasted some of the finer things in life.  I've been to college and had the chance to better myself.  I've studied something that I love and explored my creative side with writing.  I can't even name every moment that I've loved in my life.  I wish I could but I've valued all of them.  I'm also thankful for the painful experiences in life.  They've been an even bigger influence in molding me into who I am.  Everyone struggles but you take that and make it into a positive influence. Everyone gets knocked down.  The trick is to get up and dust yourself off.  That's a great thing.

So this is the end of November, the month of thanks.  Even if I'm not posting about it, I'm still going to keep in mind that I have so much to be thankful for.  It's a healthy outlook on life.

Written Long Ago

In my heart... I'm a writer.  I don't do it as often as I should but I am trying to exercise that bone.  I have a journal that I am writing a page in everyday.  I used to run a blog on LiveJournal called All_Unwritten dedicated to daily writing prompts.  If I get stuck, I am going to use that.  I just looked it up and damn my first one was pretty good.

Prompt: 
In the beginning

My writing:
In the beginning it was all a world of stones. The cascading mountains descended into pebbles. All was quiet, here in this world of harsh corners and the never ending waterfalls into the dark rock. Stones threaded through a needle in your eye. It was all in the beginning.

That's some good imagery.  I really like that.

Here's another one:

Prompt:

My Writing:
It was cold outside. It was always cold outside now. The world was in a whitewash of sleet that tugged at the leaves and massed at the edges of the window pane. It was cold and silent, like the world had forgotten to breathe, forgotten it was alive. His own breath fogged against the glass. Against glass that had ceased to be glass but surrendered itself over to a world that lacked warmth. It had given up and let itself slip into the ice that he felt crawling at the back of his neck. He mourned her, releasing the choking misery into the damp world. A world that was hungry for it, seeping his sadness deep into itself and icing it over. It was cold; it was always cold.


Seriously, I need to get back into this.  I am going to stop looking through these and reading what I've written.  I want to reuse the prompts and see what I come up with this time.  Should be a fun exercise.

Give Thanks - Challenges

I have several friends who are going through a hard time or have just recovered from a hard time in their lives.  I wish I could give them strength as they take on the battles of their lives.  I know though that there is nothing you can really do but be there for the type of support that they need and lend an ear.  You can't do anything to solve the problem until they take the first step.  And that's hard.  That's hard because as an outsider you have a lot more perspective and can see things in a clear and unemotional way.  When you're caught up in it, you can't see the clearest way out, even if someone points it out to you.  I know how hard that is and I am sad to see several people I love going through that.

I've had my own serious challenges.  I've struggled.  I've fallen down and messed up multiple times.  And I've also learned how to pick myself up and put the pieces of my mind back together.  It was horrible and hard but I am so grateful for it because now I know myself better than I did and better than I would have if everything had been easy for me.  Having myself completely destroyed and rebuilt through hard work and perseverance has given me a strength and self confidence that I love.  You only really know what you're capable of when you've had to fight so hard with something internal.

So yes, it was the worst time of my life and I didn't know if I would make it.  But I did.  And I'm stronger now.  I'm grateful.  So, although I am sorry some of my friends are struggling, I know they can get through this and be stronger on the other side.  Stay strong in yourself.

Give Thanks - Abundance

I am thankful that my family and I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving Day meal.  It all tasted amazing and there was enough for everyone to have their fill, something not everyone is lucky enough to have.

Seeing how today is Black Friday, I am thankful for living in a place of abundance where you can leave your home and go shopping for anything you want.  It is rare in this world. 

That said, I hate the materialistic nature of Black Friday.  I hate that people rush out with such greed and disregard for one another to grab up things they probably really don't need and can't afford.  Black Friday epitomizes a lot of what I think is wrong with our culture because we have no understanding of just how lucky we are in this world.  Greed is an unattractive quality in the end.

Give Thanks - Close Family

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The most important thing to be thankful for is the closeness of my family.  We've had our differences but we love each other and we will always be there for each other.  There is also no one else in the world that quite understands me the way my family does.  They are where I have come from after all.

Give Thanks - Bucket List

I am so thankful for the things that I have experienced and all the things I get to dream about experiencing someday.

Some things on my bucket list are:

• See Northern Lights
• Release a Paper Lantern
• Have a Romantic Date Under the Stars
• Ride Horses on the Beach
• Walk on the Great Wall of China
• Swim with Sharks
• Swim with Dolphins
• Be Part of a Flash Mob
• Go to a Masquerade
• Experience Zero Gravity
• Zipline in South America
• Marti Grah in New Orleans
• See the Red Woods
• Go to Harry Potter World
• Go to the Kentucky Derby
• Celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Dublin

Checked off:

 ›  Hot Air Balloon Ride

 ›  Ride an Elephant

 ›  Pet a Tiger

 ›  Skydiving 

 ›  Backpack through Europe

 ›  See the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day

 ›  Make a wish in the Trevi Fountain

 ›  Kiss the Blarney Stone

 ›  Lavender picking

 ›  Spend a week at Best Friends

 ›  Work with wolves

 ›  Zipline

Give Thanks - Safety and Open Minds

In the light of what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri, I am so grateful to be safe in my community.  Tonight, Ferguson is not safe.

Rewind.  This summer a white police officer shot and killed a young black man after an altercation.  This whole thing has turned into a comment on race and turned so negative.  Black people in Ferguson rioted and ended up hurting their community even more.  I am not going to get too much into my thoughts on it but mostly I look negatively on it all.  It is so sad that this happened but it is even worse that people are using this as a catalyst to destroy their community instead of coming together and strengthening themselves.

I am grateful that I am in a community that has been rocked (fires and floods) but did come together in strength.  I do feel safe here.  I am also so grateful that I am surrounded by people that have open minds and are willing to discuss and talk about problems without reverting to hatred and destruction.  It is something that I have cultivated in myself and I hope I can pass that on.

Important Video