Day 11: Daily Life

 

Today I am grateful for all the daily rituals involved in caring for a pet.  Getting their food and water, letting them outside, giving them pets, and maybe taking them for a walk or administering medicine.  These are things that we often do almost on auto-pilot, and sometimes can feel like a hassle on a busy day, but as I've learned, they are the moments that cause the sharpest pain of missing the pet once it's gone.  These daily acts of caring for a dependent creature, and the corresponding gratitude they often show (at least if it's a dog), are a big part of what forms the bond with your pet over time.  I'm grateful for these little rituals that day by day help us bond with our animals.

Day 10: Nature

 

Something I love about nature is the prairies of the Midwest.  The entire western half of the United States has big sky, but only the prairies have the uninterrupted, panoramic, as far as the eye can see view of the sky.  It makes for breathtaking sunsets and unbelievable storm viewing.  What the prairies lack in mountains and trees, they make up for in the personality of the wall clouds that roll in.  The vastness of the sky and the rolling fields can make you feel small in the same way as the ocean.  Because the beauty is more subtle, something equally subtle like the twinkling of fireflies and the chirping of crickets is not so easily missed. 

I have a special love for the prairies because I was raised in the Midwest. You get a special sense of place in your childhood - the prairies will always be the geography that feels most like how things are supposed to be in my mind, no matter how many decades I live elsewhere, no matter how much I love and enjoy the mountains.  And we get to go visit them next week!  I'm grateful for the rolling hills of the Midwest.

(The quote in the picture is Willa Cather.  I can also get down with John Muir's "Into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.")

Day 9: A Gift

 

Today, I am grateful for the gift of words.  I don't want to embarrass anyone in particular, so I won't get too specific with this one, but my most treasured gifts from my spouse, from my kids, and from friends, are written words that show that they know me well and value me.  

I'm also grateful when someone goes to the trouble of putting together a scrapbook of memories or a collection of pictures - these are also a favorite kind of gift.  When I have a bad day, these are the kind of gifts that help buffer the storm. 

Day 8: A Coworker

 Today, I'm grateful that I have a supportive boss and helpful assistants at work.  There are some stressful days and weeks in the life of a lawyer, some times where you need someone to have your back (whether that's helping you work through what to do next, or helping you file something that you submit at the very last minute).  I am lucky to have very competent, kind, supportive people as my co-workers.

Day 7: Social Media Platform

 

Today, I'm grateful for Instagram.  I chose Instagram in part because I've already written extensively about Facebook :).  But I do appreciate things about Insta.  I appreciate how it has photo editing capabilities, so you can show up with your shadowy, weirdly angled picture and edit it into a keeper.  I like how they make it at least a little more difficult for people to take and re-share your information.  I'm grateful for how easily you can add music to pictures and videos.  I'm grateful for funny pug videos.

But most of all, I like their focus on the visual.  I like how this encourages people to share moments of their day, rather than sharing political rants and articles of dubious truth and other things that aren't actually shares about them and their experience in this world.  

Day 6: Someone You're Grateful For

 

A person I'm grateful for is my sister-in-law, Naomi.  When you date your spouse, you don't necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about all the people that are going to come along with that choice when you get married.  Which is funny, because over the course of a lifetime, you spend a lot of time with this extended family.  I have been really, really blessed across the board with my fantastic in-laws, but have never done a focused post on Naomi.  We joined the Ching family at nearly the same time, marrying the Ching brothers just 2 weeks apart in the spring of 2006, and barely knowing each other as we lived on opposite sides of the country.  

Once I relocated to Reno, I learned that I had hit the sister-in-law jackpot.  Naomi is warm and friendly, interesting and interested, loyal, fun, so smart, and just an overall terrific human being.  We share a love of mountains and reading, we share a common faith, we had kids around the same time, and she's been a super helpful mentor for me in the world of homeschooling.  She's incredibly organized and has a spreadsheet for all occasions, which we like to tease her about, but actually makes everything run much more smoothly.  And for the last four years, she's been the pastor's wife at a church plant that we attend together, and has worked so hard to keep things going behind the scenes.  I'm so grateful for Naomi.  

Day 5: A TV Show / Movie

 

A movie I'm grateful for is The Princess Bride.  The kids are finally old enough, as a group, that we can start watching some of the movies that were my favorites as a kid.  Some of them hold up better than others.  This one is a great blend of comedy, adventure, fairy tale, and lots of quotable lines.  ("Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken" is another banger in this same category.)  This gratitude series seems to be taking on a nostalgic theme - we'll see if it continues :).  I'm grateful for movies that bring back good memories for me, and that I can enjoy all over again with my family.  

Day 4: A Type of Food

 

Today, I'm grateful for luxurious breakfast foods.  The kind that someone took the time to cook up hot, and that usually people sit around a table together and eat.  The kind that usually means weekends, holidays, special occasions, or camping.  (At least for us - weekdays are throw together something easy, like toast or oatmeal.)  The kind that would usually be called dessert, if you weren't eating it before 10 am.  

My absolute number one pick for luxurious breakfast would be banana chocolate chip pancakes and scrambled eggs with spinach and goat cheese mixed in.  But I'm also grateful for anything else in this delicious category.  

Day 3: An Album

 

An album I'm grateful for is "Jagged Little Pill" by Alanis Morissette.  This album came out in 1995 and stayed influential through the late 90s - right when I was in high school.

This album is packed with emotion - anger, wistfulness, love, sadness, a whole gamut.  And like with all the best music, you can really feel these emotions through her words and melodies.  It helped me work out the big feelings that come with the teenage years, and to see that music is a great place to turn when you want to work through the ups and downs of emotion.  

Another thing I love about this album is that it's quality songs from start to finish - a rarity always, but more so now than ever in the age of streaming music.  It was so great to put on a CD and listen to and enjoy the whole thing from start to finish.  

A Place

Today's prompt is:  think about a place you're grateful for.  I'm grateful for trails.  I love the feeling of discovery around every bend.  I love getting to see crazy rocks formations coming out of the top of a mountain and thinking about what geological event happened to make that formation.  I love walking through a desert landscape and seeing a flower appear to break up the brown and sagebrush.  I love waterfalls, big and small.  I love the sounds of birds, wind rustling through trees, babbling brooks.  I love the combination of nature, sunshine, and movement.  I love the type of easy conversation that comes when you hike as a group.  I love the silence of hiking alone.  I love running a trail that you've done a hundred times before and knowing the trees and canyons along the way like friends.  I love nature trails that tell you a new fact every quarter mile or so.  Cheers to trails!