[Get Grateful - Day 3 of 7]: Gratitude Writing Challenge - Looking Within

Writing Prompt #3: Tap into your senses.

What do you love to eat? What do you love to see? What do you love to smell? What do you love to hear? What do you love to touch? Food, drinks, movies, flowers, coffee, music, that one cute word your son or daughter says wrong, your cozy blanket, your comfy sweatshirt. List out feelings you love to feel for each of your 5 senses and the things that elicit those feelings.

Bonus Best Practice: Look at your day and how often you do the things that create these feel-good feelings. Is there a way to add more of these feel-good experiences into your day today? Perhaps, you can listen to your favorite song instead of turn on the TV, or call a friend instead of scroll instagram… Once you identify the feelings you love to have and ways to achieve them, you can start to design your days to feel better more often! #winning

Now do you see why we wanted you to write these things down?

Sight	Hearing	Touch	Taste	Smell
The play of sunlight and clouds	Rain	My homemade  fuzzy blanket	salty chips	Cinnamon
Rainbows	Rustling of leaves	Rose petals	Peppermint	Peppermint
Smiles	laughter	Holding the hand of a friend	Dark chocolate	Fresh cut grass
sunsets	bass voices	hugs	Dr. Pepper	Pot roast
kaleidoscopes	music		pot roast with potatoes and carrots	lavender

[Get Grateful - Day 2 of 7]: Gratitude Writing Challenge - Looking Around

Writing Prompt #2: What are you grateful for that is around you?

Your physical surroundings (such as a house, car, country, city or state), external surroundings (such birds chirping, sun shining, rain falling) or emotional surroundings (such as the love you feel for or from someone).

Walk yourself through the past 24 hours in detail and make a note of the things that you appreciate but rarely take time to stop and appreciate.


This should be a relatively easy post to write.  This month I have been doing a daily "I am thankful..." post on Facebook where I have looked for an item/event from the day.  I have skipped all the usual health, family, friends, shelter, love etc.. posts and looked for something specific to that day.  So this post is dropping back and writing all the things I usually take for granted....

☺ My health.  I may be overweight and getting older but I am still on the right side of the grass.  I can get around unaided, only take one daily medication, wear contacts but overall I consider myself lucky.

☺ My home.  It's not the grandest of homes but it is more than enough for me and my family.  It's keeps us warm and stores all of the stuff we have accumulated over the years.  And the acre plus of land gives us room to just be.

☺ My family.  One faithful husband of 27+ years and three healthy children.  We drive each other crazy and love each other.  The kids have grown faster than I expected.  Some days have seemed to be never-ending but the years have gone by quicker than I realized.

☺ My job.  Another thing that makes me crazy on a frequent basis.  However, it has allowed me to send my children to Catholic grade school, participate in extra curricular activities (dance, theater, Girl Scouts, Cub/Boy Scouts).  

☺ My side gig.  I wasn't supposed to become attached to the grade school kids.  I was just supposed to come in for lunch hour every day and collect money.  Their smiles and jokes have drawn me in and kept me moving every day (even on those days when I wish I could just sleep all day)

☺  My freedom.  Living in a country where we can move about in relative safety and make choices is a good thing.  Sometimes I get aggravated by the politicians who seem to be constantly battling but then I remember that I am free to ignore their rhetoric.

☺  My friends.  I have plenty of situational acquaintances who fulfill my daily need for interaction.  The few close friends all have special places in my heart.  Some I don't see for months (or years) at a time and yet we can always pick up and continue like we haven't missed a beat. 

☺ My dad's wisdom.  He's been gone for 13 months now but I can still hear his voice anytime I need to figure something out.  You taught me well dad.

☺ My mom.  I might be past the half century mark but there's nothing like the ability to call mom for advice.

☺ My in-laws.  There's nothing like your kids being close to their grandparents.  (and not just for the free babysitting!).

☺ The play of sunlight and clouds

☺ Steady hands for coloring

☺ Eyesight  (it might be nearsighted and require contacts but I still see!)

☺ Hearing  (so I don't miss those "awful" jokes at the dinner table)

☺The ability to type  (helps since I am a programmer and makes writing posts go quicker)

☺The ability to play piano (as long as I have the sheet music)

☺ Words with Friends.  It's my daily check-in with friends and family who I don't see often.  We don't have to say anything.  Just the playing of a word lets us know the other is still on the right side of the grass ;)

[Get Grateful - Day 1 of 7]: Gratitude Writing Challenge - Starting Small

Writing Prompt #1: What did you do today (or yesterday if writing in the morning) that you felt good or you enjoyed?

Listened to a great song, played with your kids, met a friend for lunch, walked the dogs, read a nice email, watched a funny video, etc.

Walk yourself through the past 24 hours in detail and make a note of the activity you were doing (Talked to Mom) and the feeling you were feeling (Love, Connection, Laughter) anytime you were feeling anything good.

Simple enough, right?!

Have fun revisiting your day, recognizing the good times and writing them down.

It's been long week where I haven't really felt like doing much but every day I've gotten up and driven the boys to school  (full disclosure, they did have a 2 hour delay on Thursday due to weather) and gotten myself to my side gig as the cafeteria cashier.  So this post is a day late.  This should have been yesterday's post.

On Friday, what made me feel good was the smiling faces greeting me in the cafeteria line.  And knowing that the week was over (mostly).  My slacker attitude during the week means I need to spend a few hours on Saturday getting work done for my real job.  I also enjoyed a grownup dinner with my husband and daughter after dropping off the boys for their Scout planning weekend trip.

Corked

Last night we celebrated Dennis' birthday a few hours early.  He made ribs and the wine flowed freely.  Five and a half hours with 4 active drinkers and seven empty bottles.  I had a few tastes here an there but nothing really struck my fancy.
	Definitely want to keep the Pi bottle. Interested to see how the wine tastes. It was a birthday present from Cindy and Jeff. We have been known to buy bottles of wine just for the interesting bottle

A couple weeks ago, Dennis brought home some old bottles of wine and champagne from his parent's garage to dump into our compost pile. He and the boys opened a couple bottles last weekend to see if they would still pop and fizz. They said it was disappointing. Last night Scott brought one of the old wine bottles out to the porch and we opened it just to see how bad it had gotten. I screwed up trying to get the cork out but eventually we had a big enough hole in the cork to pour some into a plastic cup. It definitely smelled like vinegar. Today I decided to dump it and the remaining bottles out. One champagne cork broke in half. I was lucky enough to be able to finally figure out the corkscrew and get the remaining piece out. I did not do so well with opening the last bottle of old wine.

Reaction to action

Recently someone asked me "Why do you feel it necessary to ...?"  What I "did" was not illegal or unethical.  After I thought about it for a while, it occurred to me, the question back to that person should have been "why does it bother you that I ..." ?

As my children approach adulthood, I need to remember this advice and apply it to myself when they inevitably do something with which I disagree.  If I disagree with something they do, I can express my disappointment and/or my concern.  Ultimately, the choice is still theirs to make.

Dad

Sign seen in Meijer store while shopping for last minute items
 the day of my dad's visitation (10/23).  Dad had passed away
 on Friday 10/20/2017 at 11:30.  If he had a sign, this would be it.

"Let's see where this road goes"  A favorite saying of my dad when driving.  That saying led us to many things most kids didn't see.  The Y bridge in Zanesville Ohio.  Amish buggies in northeastern Ohio  (Holmes County area) and many more things.  As children, we probably saw most of the routes from Canton to Cincinnati within the confines of Route 30, I-77, I-70 and I-71.  Interesting tidbit: Dad never left the United States.  He said why leave the country when there is so much to see here.

This willingness of his to take an unfamiliar road has transferred to me.  It's allowed me to get around traffic jams since I'm willing to use my surroundings to know that I am still headed in the general direction that I need to go.  Yes, I'm sometimes wrong and end up taking a much longer route and probably taking more time that it would have to sit through the traffic jam however, I usually learn a new route and see one or more interesting things along the way.

This curious nature of his also led him to teach us the layout of the city streets in and around Cincinnati.  One Christmas season while I was volunteering in Norwood, I had to ask him to please take the same route to and from Norwood on any given day.  I was willing to see a new route the next time but I needed to see the same route from both directions to really cement it in my mind.

Knowing the basic layout of the city proved useful when I was taking him to therapy at Good Sam Hospital from Harrison.  Dixmyth/Martin Luther King Boulevard/ Hopple Street Viaduct was under construction so one afternoon when leaving the hospital and noticing that traffic was backed up, I simply turned onto a side street that would lead us through Clifton and Knowlton's Corner and West Fork and finally to  I-74 to get back to Harrison.  Along the way, he commented on streets that were no longer or were now dead ends.  And bridges that used to cross the valley before I-75 was constructed.  The man was a walking, talking history lesson.

This curiosity extended to other parts of his life.  It was never good enough to know how to do something, we also needed to know why it worked.  For example, if you asked dad the formula for finding the surface area of a cylinder, he would launch into a discussion of what did area mean.  And what information did you have that could lead you to the formula.  To this day, I do not remember the formula for the surface area of a cylinder, but in less than 30 seconds I can construct it.

He read slowly  (a trait not passed on to me).  And when he finished reading he understood and could explain what he read.  Sometimes, this methodical reading could make you crazy.  When my husband and I sold our house to my parents, my dad did not get advance copies of the documents to be signed at closing.  At closing, he read every word on every page.  While I understood the importance of him knowing what he was signing, it was making me crazy because I was losing time on a contract job.

Friends learned over the years, don't ask Dad a question unless you really want the full explanation.  Or as many people joked, begin your query with "In 25 words or less..."  We were talking about Dad during his final days and my children heard this explanation, it finally dawned on them why I do the same to them.

 So take the road less traveled, wonder about the things around you and enjoy the stories others tell.

No is not a command

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend who was telling me what his young adult son has said about the dog training books he had read.  The son was complaining that he didn't learn anything becuase the books were full of things that are common sense.  And there was one suggestion that you should never tell a dog "No".

[full disclosure:  I have never owned a dog or cat or any trainable pet.  I have fish and three children]

I expressed my agreement with the book that telling a dog "No" is not really a useful thing.  If you want a dog to stop doing what it is doing, my thought is the best thing to do is redirect the dog's attention.  We discussed why the command "Leave it" is not the same as saying "No"

But this post is not about training dogs.  It's about the use of the word "No".

Based on experience with my children (including twin boys who were experts are going two different directions at the same time), I found that using the word "no" brings immediate attention to the forbidden item/action. It makes it the focus when I really want to redirect them to something else.

"No" is a response is to a question.  "Do you like eggs?"  "Do you want to go to the fair?" "Would you like fresh grated cheese on your pasta?"

You want someone to stop or change what they are doing, issue a command.  "Turn down the volume on the radio"  "Give your brother his tablet"  "Eat your peas"  "Stop jumping on the bed"

 Imagine yourself in this situation.  You are filling out a form at a desk.  You pick a black pen from the pen cup and begin writing on the form.  Someone yells at you "NO".  You stop.  Now what are you supposed to do?  What is the problem?  Is the pen the wrong color?  Are you not supposed to write on the form? Are you filling out the wrong form?  Does the person need to explain the form before you fill in the answers?    What do you do?  Stare at the person who yelled?

Now imagine the person had said, "please wait, I need to explain the questions"  or "please use a blue pen".   You know the problem and you can correct the action.

Perhaps "no" could be a useful word if we stopped trying to make it a command.