Becoming Crunchy

Archive for the ‘Gratitude’ Category

Happy Thanksgiving Americans!

We’ve already done Thanksgiving here in Canada (way back in October! Weird, I know ), but being a born and raised American, I always feel justified in celebrating two Thanksgivings…we just move our November turkey day to the weekend.

This year I’m adding meaning to my celebration by joining the lovely Amanda Metro of Let’s Take the Metro in her Gratitude Challenge – basically, making a list (together with lots of other bloggers) of 100 things that make me feel thankful.

I’ll start with the warm fuzzies I know I’m going to get from writing this post and reading the others…and without further ado (in no particular order beyond the first two):

1. Baby Bean always tops the list! I am more grateful than I can ever say for this little girl who’s been so much more to me than I ever could have imagined…every day I love her more…every day she surprises me – if I had nothing else to be grateful for, she would make it all worth it.

2. The husband comes in at a close second. He is awesome and handsome and funny and loves me – I am thankful to have been married to him for 5 years now.

3. Sushi. What’s not to be thankful for?

4. Llamas. Same ? as above.

5. Pinterest. It’s awesome.

6. Good friends. You know who you are. I always wish we could live closer, but you are often in my thoughts and I couldn’t do it without you…

7. Bubbles.

8. Sunflower Seeds.

9. Music. Whether it’s driving home in traffic and having a favorite song come on (Foster the People, anyone?) or singing to Bean or listening to her sing – it always makes me feel better in so many different ways.

10. Cloudy days.

11. A chance to sleep in.

12. A night out with the girls.

13. Luther the dog (as much as he also frequently annoys me, I am very thankful for him).

14. Sage the cat (same aside as above).

15. A trip to the pumpkin farm (and the apple farm, and the berry farm, and the Christmas tree farm…)

16. Water. I love water. I love drinking it, swimming in it, walking in the rain, soaking in a bath, starting at a lake or the ocean, standing under a hot shower and letting it soothe me. I cannot emphasize enough how very, very thankful I am for water. Read the rest of this entry »

Image by rversde23 via Flickr

I’m joining in with Amandra Metro, TouchstoneZ, and others in being thankful until “I absolutely exude gratitude”.

Last week I had the opportunity to post how thankful I am for certain specific bloggers – I plan to do that again soon, but this week I’ve had a lot to be grateful for just in life so that’s where I’m sharing from…

This week I have been grateful for:

1. The care my in-laws give to my daughter. I have awesome Chinese in-laws who pretty much believe it’s their job to care for the grandchildren – like, full-time care. Up until the last few months I’ve been hesitant to let my little Bean go for more than a few hours at a time, but as I will be returning to work soon, both of us need to get used to the idea. She now goes to their house for a full day once or twice a week, and has nothing but fun. The moment she sees her Popo (grandmother) she starts laughing her head off – it is obvious that she is already one of Bean’s favorite people in her little world. I’ll admit – I wasn’t keen on the idea of having them care for Bean while I work – we don’t exactly agree on quite a few parenting points! But they have admirably respected my wishes – even when they think I’m crazy – and the love they have for Bean pretty much overshadows any other small concern. Now, instead of apprehension, I can only feel gratitude for their willingness to help raise their granddaughter – and the knowledge that Bean has so many amazing people to love and take care of her! Read the rest of this entry »

Image by kateausburn via Flickr

I’m joining in with Amandra Metro, TouchstoneZ, and SchmoopyBaby in being thankful until “I absolutely exude gratitude”.

I must say ever since I started joining in with these posts 3 weeks ago I’ve seen quite an attitude shift in my life…guess they weren’t lying when they said to count your blessings!

This week I’ve been particularly grateful that I have so many amazing people to speak into my life and learn from, so I thought in this post and a few others upcoming that I would highlight some of those specific people and why I’m grateful for them.

So here goes…

This week I am grateful for: Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

I’m joining in with Amandra Metro (and a few others now – TouchstoneZ, SchmoopyBaby and I believe One Rich Mother) - in being thankful until “I absolutely exude gratitude”.

Kind of funny because I must admit, my attitude has not been much one of gratitude this week!

And I’m starting to see more and more how much that has to do with NOT focusing on the things I can be grateful for.

So I’m being a bit more intentional about this this week – building on my post from last week in sharing 5 things I am grateful for from over the past 7 days – and planning to come back to this again when I’m starting to feel like things aren’t going my way (I hate it when things don’t go my way!) .

I really would love to get the place where I feel and come across as grateful more often than not…and where it wouldn’t matter so much to me if life doesn’t always go exactly the way I want it to (hmmm…maybe I should have learned that by now?)…At any rate…

Here it goes: Read the rest of this entry »