Category: grateful

Thankful

Right up there with Halloween, on my list of favorite holidays, is Thanksgiving. We don’t go crazy decorating for Thanksgiving like we do for Halloween, sure enough, though admittedly our living room has more than its fair share of leaves, acorns, garland, and pumpkins this time of year. We don’t buy heaps of candy or dress up in elaborate costumes. But I have been anticipating today with just as much excitement.

Thanksgiving is a quieter, more subtle holiday to me. Sentimental. It’s more about home, family, loved ones, remembering who brightens our days and brings a smile to our face. It’s taking the time to treasure who lights up our heart and to be thankful for each one of them. This day only comes once a year, and I intend to make every single second count.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pretty Damn Good

After weeks of barely-existent workouts and eating like a ravenous, growing baby dinosaur, I squared up with the scale this morning. I joked with my husband that if he heard me shriek in horror and collapse to the floor, to pay me no mind. He told me, “You’re doing fine, and I like your butt the way it is anyway.” I laughed and ventured forth to face the scale.

It was a gain, of course. No surprise there. Not as atrocious as I was expecting, but still, it’s icky to see numbers on the scale that I thought I would never have to see again.

But I know that where I go from here is 100% up to me. Keep wallowing in bad habits, gain some more, or accept this new starting point, learn from the stumble, and get back on the path to badassery.

I saved this quote to my phone as a reminder. There is nothing to be gained (no pun intended) by being angry with myself or punishing myself for a slip-up.

I take responsibility for gaining some weight back, and I accept that it’s up to me to reverse course and get back on track. Simple as that. In the past, I have blown it up to insurmountable proportions and made it so much worse for myself. I refuse to do that again.

Let’s put it into perspective. Look around! I have a loving, supportive husband who can’t keep his hands off of me, no matter what I weigh.

We have a beautiful home that is our refuge and retreat.

We have love, happiness, and plenty of laughter, thanks to my husband and the goofy kids (and now grandkids).

We have it pretty damn good. I don’t want to ever lose sight of that again, and I want to appreciate and honor all the blessings in my life. Even while working on myself, I want to embrace the beauty and joy that already exist in my life, and never miss an opportunity to feel loved and happy.

Party for Two

The first time I saw this quote, I saved it to my phone. It’s been there since early this year, long before I made my new start to take better care of myself. There are many reasons I wanted to lose weight and get healthy again, and undeniably, one of the biggest reasons was to make my husband proud of me for doing it.

Thing is, though, he was never disappointed in me to start with. Naturally, he was worried about my health, and he didn’t like the toll that gaining weight had taken on my self-esteem and attitude about myself. He told me he would not tolerate anyone talking bad about me, including me. That meant a lot to me and stayed with me.

My husband has watched me lace up my sneakers, trudge off to workouts I didn’t want to do, ice my knee when my body wasn’t quite ready for all this yet, weigh in each week, smiling some weeks and ready to smash the scale on others. He has been there from the “I think I need to make some changes” stage to the “Hot damn, baby, these jeans fit!” stage, and each stop in between.

And he has never made me feel like I am less than beautiful and sexy to him. Even when I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror at myself, even when pounds kept creeping on, he believed in me, saw something I couldn’t see anymore. I lost faith in myself at some point, but he never did, and because of that, I was able to shakily get back on my feet one more time and whisper, “Let’s try again.”

I am grateful for my husband. Every day, he gives me new reasons to love him even more. Reaching my goal has never been a one-woman show or a solitary celebration. He has been my biggest supporter every step of the way, reminding me of exactly what I am capable of, so this is definitely a much-deserved party for two.

Don’t Skip Thanksgiving

It happens every year, but it still tremendously irks me. Even before Halloween decorations have been taken down, stores stampede to toss Christmas trees and wreaths and flashing lights over every square inch like gaudy confetti, and they urge you to shop, shop, shop until you’re exhausted (and broke).

In the middle of it all, completely forgotten, pushed aside, ignored once again, is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is a quieter, more sedated, low-key holiday. I love Halloween, and we go all-out with our decorations. Although we don’t get nearly as elaborate with Thanksgiving decorations, I still have a soft spot for this holiday.

I like the idea of slowing down for a moment, taking time to reflect on what we might otherwise take for granted: people, family, jobs, pets, love, anything and everything that makes us smile or brings happiness to our lives. It’s important to acknowledge that and to make sure others know we appreciate them, and to remind ourselves of all that we have.

I look around our home, the yard that my husband and I put so much into, and I remember how hard we worked to find a place we both fell in love with. I see all the changes we have made to put our personal touch on it, make it ours. I am grateful not only for all of that, but for finding my true partner in the first place to do all of this with.

For years, this holiday has meant traveling up north to spend a few days with my mom in my childhood home, and hopefully seeing my brothers, too. It still stings that I won’t be seeing my mom anymore, but I can’t stay trapped in the sadness and loss. My mom liked to decorate too, especially when my brothers and I were still little, and some of the Thanksgiving decorations in my home now were once hers. It means a lot to me to place them where I can see them and feel just a little bit closer to her.

I don’t like the frantic, thoughtless, mad rush straight to Christmas, as if Thanksgiving is a nothing holiday that doesn’t matter. Today, to be honest, it means more than ever. The more people bury their faces in cell phones, the more we need direct, human-to-human, genuine contact. The more people prize material things and inanimate objects, the more we need to emphasize the value of friends, family, loved ones. The more people immerse themselves in artificial interactions on social media, the more we desperately need neighbors, conversations, families telling stories, meaningful connections and authentic relationships.

So yes, I know Christmas is coming, and I don’t hate or reject Christmas. But a holiday focused on gratitude, thankfulness, and family should not be skipped over in the haste to get to presents and Santa Claus. Each year, it seems that Thanksgiving dims more and more, and each year, it seems like we need it even more than ever.

Blessing

Yesterday was a non-stop whirlwind. I didn’t have time to slow down and even breathe. Work was hectic, then I came home to open this, read that, fill that out, file those, clean that, get various animals fed and taken care of, check and re-check my to-do list to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

When it was finally all done, I stepped into a hot, soothing shower, hoping to relax and unwind. Ahhhhh…quiet, solitude, peace.

It was the first time all day I wasn’t insanely busy. So what did I do? Well…I started to cry. Now that I had slowed down, now that I could think, I missed my mom so much. I wanted to call her. I wanted to tell her about my day. I couldn’t. And that fact was ripping through my heart until I could barely breathe.

I thought I was being stealthy, crying quietly, but my husband has ears like radar. The shower curtain rustled softly, and then he was there, silently slipping into the shower behind me, sliding his arms around me and squeezing me tight against him. We didn’t say anything. We didn’t need to.

We stood in the hot water and steam, my tears mingling with the water streaming down my face, my emotions mixing too: feeling anguished but loved. Left behind but not alone. Heartbroken but unbelievably thankful.

By the time we stepped out of the shower, I was able to smile again, and we even laughed at the shock of cold air as we reached for our towels. The rest of the evening was spent snuggling under a blanket, his arms still around me, and I am starting to feel like I am no longer hopelessly shattered, but slowly gluing pieces of myself back together.

There’s an intimacy to baring your soul like that, to stripping down and hiding nothing, that goes far beyond physical. I am grateful that I am able to be so vulnerable with him, that he is always there for me, and that he wraps me up until I feel safe again. I am grateful for every twist and turn in my life that led me to him. I am grateful that we found each other, appreciate each other, and will never let go.

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