What am I thankful for?

What I am thankful and grateful for Thanksgiving 2014

This has been a tough year for me. Sure, lots of good things happened, but lots of terrifying things did too.  I was hospitalized. My husband had health problems. We struggled financially and have come through it alive and in fairly good shape.

So – what am I thankful for.

My husband for being my rock and helping me when I need it. He picks up my slack when I can’t do things as I pick up the slack for him. Ours is a true partnership in the best sense of the word. I don’t know what I would do without him.

I’m also grateful for my son. We almost didn't have a child, so it’s still a big deal we have him. And despite all the difficulties of being a parent, I really do enjoy it. There are no other people I want to spend time with as much as I want to spend time with my husband and son.

My family and my inlaws. I am really lucky to have wonderful people in my life. People I can discuss politics with and personal problems with and get great advice. I have some REALLY smart people in my family and I am glad that technology lets me talk to them regularly.

I am glad that I live when I do so that our health problems didn't kill us. Technology, doctors, nurses, etc – everything that goes into modern health care is wonderful and lifesaving. I would not be here if someone hadn't figured out how to do a cat scan or laproscopic surgery.

Television and the internet. I am addicted to Bollywood movies and thanks to things like Netflix and my TV – I can see a world full of movies in my living room with my feet up nursing a broken toe while writing this blog. And this makes me very happy.

I love my crockpot and the fact my mother in law gifted it to me. It has made cooking for my family so much easier.

I love Pinterest. Tonight’s dinner was a crockpot recipe I found on Pinterest and – again, there’s the internet and crowd intelligence working well for my personal benefit. So to the people who post recipes etc – thank you. Thank you to the geeks who created the site and the people who created and maintain an open internet for me to use.

Science. At the moment, my son and his friends are raising tadpoles in a tank on my porch. It’s a porch I like sitting on when it rains. I like looking out in my yard at night under the moonlight – with the frogs chirping. As I sit and enjoy nature, I am reminded about all we know about nature because we figured out a way to objectively search for the truth through a methodology known as science.  And it is this search for knowledge that has created all the things that make my current life so wonderful – and of course science helped enable the technology that saved my life.

Mostly, I’m just thankful that I am alive to experience life. The good and the bad. And I’m thankful that you, who are reading this, find value enough in my writing to stick with me and continue reading my thoughts and ideas as crazy as they sometimes are.

I hope you are as grateful and thankful to be alive as I am.

What am I thankful for?

Reflecting on what makes my life worth living.

Every night before I go to sleep, I take the time to run through a list of what I am grateful for in my life. Or rather, who I am grateful for. Because what matters to me isn’t the tv I have, or rather don’t have.  What matters to me are the people who I am lucky enough to share my life with.

I am thankful for my husband. He keeps me calm and helps me in a myriad of ways. He’s cute and funny and nice and handy to have around. I genuinely like being around him and having him in my life and every night before I go to sleep, I think to myself how much I love him.

I also think about how thankful I am to have my son. He’s funny and cute and a good cuddler and smart and interesting and I love hanging around with him too.  He is a joy to spend time with, even when he is annoying me (most of the time anyway). I genuinely like him so in addition to thinking about how much I love my husband I also think about how much I love my son.

The final think I think about before I go to sleep is how thankful I am to be alive. After all, I just as easily might not have been. And then, to quote Dr. Seuss I’d be a wasn’t and a wasn’t has no fun at all, no he doesn’t.  Being alive is, if you’ll forgive me, a miracle. I have no intention of wasting it. So every night, just before I go to sleep, I think about how much I love being alive, despite what all might be going on to annoy or upset or scare me.

Having done that I find I am in a happy contented mood and I fall easily asleep. I suppose you could consider this routine a sort of pre-sleep meditation. But it works for me and I am reminded every day what my true priorities are.

What are you thankful for?