give thanks continuously

There are some times that are so obviously moments full of grateful thought - yesterday one of those moments occurred. I was in the tub and noticed Bella sitting and staring at something - I thought that she was admiring her new dog bed and dunked my head back under the water.

A few minutes later Carm went into the bedroom and I heard him exclaim that Bella had brought a mouse into the house. I'm sure you can see that there were many things to be grateful for at that moment:

   1) she didn't eat it first and puke it up on the carpet (been there)

   2) the mouse was already dead and not scurrying around the house.

   3) I was in the tub and obviously couldn't deal with the situation, leaving Carm to clean up the mess!

I flitted about the house yesterday house cleaning and putting up Christmas decorations. After the month of chaos I wasn't keen on laying out the whole shebang (I have bins of decorations), but put out enough baubles to make the house seem festive. We had company coming - my high achieving, Martha Stewart aunt - so I wanted to make an effort.

Speaking of aunts, I've been getting emails from my 12 1/2 year old niece in NZ. When I saw the first email come in I thought "oh, this will be cute". In fact, it blew me away. Maybe I'm out of touch with the capabilities of a 12 year old, but she had better command of the language than some people I know with university educations!

I hope she doesn't mind, but here is an example of her description of her day: "There isn't a single cloud in the sky and the only wind is a tickling breeze that makes the grass sway. Most of the time everything is completely still apart from the buzzing bees and the occasional bird that swoops by. It is such beautiful weather. I wish I could send you some of this weather in an envelope ;)"

Of course I am a proud aunt and it kills me that they are so far away.

We are going to see the last Hobbit movie today!!! On youtube I heard the song they will sing while the credits are rolling - I'm quite certain that my vision will be too blurred to see brother-in-law Shawn's name in the credits...

 

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson