30 Days of Gratitude - Day 30

Today, I want to profess my gratitude for Life!!

Because I can I not only want to live but I want to LIVE!! While we are stepping into the final month of the year, I want to say goodbye to gratitude and hello to a month of reflection and then starting the new year full of LIFE and CREATIVITY!!

Thank you all for joining me on my continued journey. 

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 29

I cannot believe that I have gone this whole month and have not recognized the gratitude that I have for my fantastic sister, Marti (and by extension her husband Graham). Marti was my first friend and my best friend and will remain so forever. She is a wonderful mother to Kathleen and Colin:

Kathleen, who, sadly decided to go to the University of Texas in Austin
and is now a Longhorn. She is an amazing kid with an old soul.

Colin, in September celebrating his 15 birthday. Sitting next to him is his cousin, Luke.
Colin has been a charmer since the day he was born.  

Marti is also a great teacher and from what I understand has the patience of the angels to tolerate her classes. She has an incredibly sensitive heart and cries when she reads "Where the Red Fern Grows" to her students. Marti and I can get tickled at the silliest things together, usually our mom. My only wish is that we would spend more time together just the two of us, but I know she is busy with the kids right now, but hopefully in a couple of more years we can hang out together for sister time.

In the meantime, I'm very grateful to have such a wonderful sister who has given our family two great additions as well as brought into our fold her husband, Graham and via Graham a whole extension of his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and their kids. When Marti and Graham got married, we increased our family not by just one but by 6 and then some.

Oh, and one last thing, totally unrelated to my gratitude for my sister.....

There was a time many, many moons ago when Kathleen wore a Texas A&M shirt!!

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 28

Today I am grateful that I have a house where I can escape and be myself. We live in a time where I, as a single woman, can purchase a house on my own and make it into a home for me, my puppy, and hopefully a place where my friends and family feel comfortable enough to make it their home as well.

If home is where the heart is and if this is the case, then my home is where ever my friends and family are because that is really where my heart resides. 

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 27

Today I want to state how grateful that I live in a place where potable water is plenty and I do not have to worry about staying hydrated.

Sadly, there is still parts of this world that water is not as plentiful and people still struggle to just live. Here are some statistics that I found on Water.org.

• Every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness. 
• Women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water. 
• 3.4 million people die each year from a water related disease. That is almost the entire city of Los Angeles. Nearly all deaths, 99%, occur in the developing world.  
• 780 million people lack access to clean water. That's more than 2.5 times the United States population; or approximately one in nine people. 
• Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every four hours. 
• Of the 60 million people added to the world's towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities. 

These are just a couple of sobering thoughts about how important water is to this world and even though it is the most abundant compound on Earth's surface, covering about 70 percent of the planet, providing it in a safe and drinkable way to all of the inhabitants is still an ongoing challenge. Consider how important water is to you the next time you fill up your glass or wash your hands or do you laundry. Imagine living in a world where it is not so readily available to you.

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 26

Today, I am grateful for audiobooks. I know, weird thing to be grateful for, but I do enjoy them as I can listen to one while I'm doing other things, like working on reports at the office or designing and putting together a quilt at home. If it didn't confuse me, I would listen to one while I was reading another book.

30 Days of Gratitude - Day 25

Today, I want to profess my gratitude for Wishlists!!

I have created one for myself on Amazon.com. Actually, I have a number of lists out there that help me sort out mostly books or music that I want to purchase at some point. I also set one up for people who are looking for things to give to me.

I've been making wishlists since I was a small child and it is so much easier now....just a click of a button.

However, I will never forget the year that I provided a multi-paged wishlist based on the Sear's Wishbook where to each of my grandparents. I wrote down the page, item number, color, and all other important information that they might need to provide appropriate Christmas presents. Mom tried to tell me that I wan't going to get EVERYTHING on the list, as if.... I replied to her that I was only providing them lots of OPTIONS!!

I still like to offer lots of options on my Wishlists!!