Be Thankful!

Today as I'm reading the July 2012 Family Circle, I happened upon a short blurb about thankfulness.  It reads "Being thankful has been linked to deeper sleep and less anxiety but a recent study at the University of Kentucky shows that it also helps you to control your temper."

You would think that being thankful would be relatively simple; be thankful for your health, for your family, for living in a free country.  People have even been thankful for summer skies, summer vacations and just the change of pace that summer brings.

But what if everything I've enumerated isn't something that you can be thankful for?  Then what?

It's very important to have something to be thankful for, or at least it seems like it, for your health.  So try using these as jumping off points to find something to be thankful for.

1.  Have a job?  Be grateful.  So many people don't.  If you are one of the ones without a job, why not try being an entrepreneur?  I would suggest Avon, or something that, like Avon, has a range of prices and so can fit anyone's budget.  Take out some books on guerrilla marketing and party plans from the library, and sell seriously!

2.   Do you have old family photographs?  Isn't it nice to be able to reminisce about times past? 

3.  Establish a weekly movie night, either with family, friends, a combination of the two, or by yourself.  With public libraries lending DVDs, there is no financial reason to not have a movie night!

4. Popcorn.  Be grateful unpopped corn is so inexpensive! And multifunctional.  It can be popped for your movie night, scattered in tomato soup, and robed in homemade caramel to make decorations of popcorn balls for your Christmas tree!

5.  Texting.  I'm grateful for the one line texts or voicemails that my faraway family and friends send me, often for no other reason than to say hello, they're thinking of me.

6.  Letters.  They take so much longer to write, they are way too expensive to spend now that postage for first class mail is just under 50 cents, but they are a delight, as are postcards.  Everyone of them goes into a paper mache box I have just for that purpose, to be savored over and over!!

What little things are you grateful for?  What little things warm your heart?

Cafe Press Shirt

Trying to buy gifts for Nate this year, and still not going ridiculously overboard was hard to do this year because for the most part, I don't have a car. So no running out and picking up "littles" here and there. Consequently, I did the majority of my buying over the web.

Nate really like John Wayne, and with the remake of "True Grit" coming out, I had to buy him the best version as a Christmas present - the original, with John Wayne in it! I also mosied over to Snap Fish to make him a new mouse pad, figuring that everyone needs a new mouse pad. I know the one that I have, is the one that came with the computer. It is thin and bent up, and cuts my hand when I get close to it's bent up edges.

I didn't know it, Nate has a desk, no computer.

Then I mosied over to Cafe Press for this wise guy shirt. I knew I was about out of time (yes, I really procrastinated this year) , so I asked them to please wrap it, before sending it. They did a fantastic job! No one could guess what the gift was, and everyone in the house shook or squeezed it at some time or other. When Nate opened it, I was really pleased with how well the picture was printed out.
Lastly, I know that we just had winter storm Adrianna. It ruined my son's Christmas visit and now the snow that came with it is having the good grace to start melting away. I can't wait for it to be gone, and for winter to be over.

I am not giving it one more line of blog!