Gratitude Challenge -- Day 10

1.  Lithia Park.   Everyday during this colorful season, a walk through and around this beautiful park gives one a different view--today the beginnings of color; tomorrow a burst of red and gold flame.  Deer roam freely--looking up as one passes to say walk quietly and don't trample my lovely home.  The stream runs amid boulders spilling into pools and meandering under walking bridges.  The sound of its gentle flow gives way to a new tenderness in one's heart--a gift of the park.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our heart.

                       --- William Hazlitt 

2.  My English/Scottish Country Dance class.   I'm beginning my third year of classes.   I now know another language:  duple minor, triple minor, first and second diagonals, clover leaf turn, fall back.  And when our language skills lag and movements less than perfect, we smile and catch up on the next move.  The friendships that develop in class are people we want to be with!

 

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

                  --- Jane Austen 

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 9

1.  Containers.  A silly thing perhaps.  But nothing gives me greater satisfaction--remember I'm retired and past the point of high adventure--than a trip to The Container Store.  Shelves lined with all sizes and shapes of boxes and baskets...my salivating glands work overtime at the mention.  They must be pretty--and if they're not when purchased, I add embellishments--organization is NOT a utilitarian endeavor; it's part of the decor. 

Organized people are just too lazy to look for something...--a truism. 

2.  Memory of a feather bed.  My third grade teacher invited a friend and me to stay overnight with her family.  We slept in the attic in a feather bed.  Cuddling down into the thick softness, covered with homemade quilts, we recreated stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables.   Are feather beds still in existence?

Don't you wish you could take a single childhood memory 

and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?
                                                   ― Sarah Addison Allen

 

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 8

1.  My Fitbit...Zip.  Yes, I no longer rave about my Flex since it's probably reached Japan by now--lost on the coast during an otherwise lovely day.   I have a lanyard coming which will enable me to wear the Zip around my neck--since that's where things must end up so they won't get lost.  (I'm hoping--hint, hint--for a couple of beautifully beaded lanyards from Santa--who by the way is the proprietor of a lovely shop called DearGirlJewelry.)   Now that I'm into counting my steps again, I want to take off for parts beyond...'cept that will take a GPS--though being directionally challenged does allow for some interesting experiences.

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty.  

She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is.

                                             --- Ellen DeGeneres 

2.  Yoga.  While I'm thinking about exercise--truly hate that word!--I do not put yoga in that category.  I can feel the changes in my body as I stretch and move to the directions of my instructor.  Acceptance of myself.  Much less pain.  Much more energy.   

In our uniquely human capacity to connect movement with breath and spiritual meaning, 

yoga is born. 

                                                 --- Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa 

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 7

1.  My grandchildren.   While they navigate two generations beyond me, and often speak a completely foreign language, there is a connection that defies estrangement.    They teach me.  They allow me to use skills that see only their best, and smile when actions might be questioned.  What a lovely time of life!

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.

      --- Welsh Proverb 

2.  October in Southern Oregon.  Sunlit days.  The grand finale of color before the skeletons of winter encompass the valley.  Cooler nights.  OLLI classes and the meeting of friends on the English dance floor.  Setting aside that stack of books for winter's read.  A slower pace.

The harvest moon hangs round and high

It dodges clouds high in the sky,

The stars wink down their love and mirth

The Autumn season is giving birth.

Oh, it must be October...

            --- Pearl N. Sorrels 

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 6

1.  Cabaret Theatre.  Yesterday, a friend and I saw Backwards in Heels:  The Ginger Rogers Musical--one amazing production!  Another reason I love living in southern Oregon!  When I was a child, I saw the movie American in Paris with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.  I danced my way home--oblivious to anyone around me.  Now I just sit and enjoy--while my heart performs the movements.

No woman ever ages beyond eighteen in her heart.

          --- Robert A. Heinlein

2.  Gentle mornings.  Slow awareness as I open my eyes.  Hearing the birds' wake-up songs.  Watching the sun's rays slither through the leaves bringing light to my bedroom.  Reading in the quietness of the morning.  Sipping my coffee/CREAMER--capitalization intentional--to take my drowsiness to alertness. 

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive--

to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

                          --- Marcus Aurelius

(Non-morning people will hate that quote...)

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 5

1.  Wearing my granny gown.  When I was a child, I asked my grandmother over and over to make me a flannel granny gown.  Whatever her reason, it didn't happen.  So naturally my daughters--throughout childhood--had many frilly, flannel gowns--vicariously I fed that inner need.  I recently found one in my adult size.  Now as cooler nights visit I put on my cozy gown and snuggle into the covers finally fulfilling that childhood dream.

2.  Trees.  When I bought my home, the backyard was a mass of weeds.  Now, seven years later, maples, dogwood, sugar gum and arborvitae are spread over the very small landscape.  I have shade, fragrance, the rustling of leaves, and everywhere I look is color and texture.   I walk among them and our energies intertwine. 

We can only be said to be alive in those moments 

when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.

                                  — Thornton Wilder

Gratitude Challenge -- Day 4

1.  This morning Gilly is snuggled beside me on his Gilly blanket.  He is my man--49 years by human standards.  He makes me laugh every day--carrying around a stuffed cat (that's almost as big as he is) when he gets excited.  He's intent on picking up after me--no food scraps on my kitchen floor.  He sleeps with his ears alert--always my protector.  My buddy.

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.

                                                                                           --- Josh Billings

2.  Yesterday I attended an all day conference that focused on local resources for enhancing the lives of children and families.   I feel privileged to be a part of a system that helps individuals recognize their strengths.

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

                                                        --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe