Week 17: It's a busy week here at the homestead. Our oldest son left this morning after visiting for several days, and a new round of company will arrive on Saturday. I'm grateful for the opportunity to share our home and time with friends and family who live elsewhere this week and chose that as my blessing.

I realize the chances that you also having houseguests this week are not good, so I've broadened the prompt to take that into consideration. Think about the people you welcome into your home and how they fit into our blessing awareness. It might be your sister who visits once in a blue moon or your cousin who stops by once a week...the frequency and distance they traveled are not important. These special people are among the good things we're celebrating in our lives. Or take this prompt another direction; what home-away-from-home makes your heart the happiest? It might be sleeping in your childhood bed on a trip back to see your parents or perhaps it's the excitement of visiting a good friend who job has taken her to another city. The idea is to appreciate the experience of having or being a houseguest and what that says about your relationship to the visitor/host.

There are more thoughts on this concept on my blog and you'll find the page I created in the gallery. Here's hoping you'll be spending time with someone you treasure soon, whether at your home or theirs.



Week 16: What's making me happy this week? Walking out the back door to a patio filled with clean furniture. I spent an afternoon this week washing away winter's grime and spring's pollen. It's a big chore but one I don't mind doing because I love the end result...being able to eat lunch or dinner out there or just to relax there for a few minute and survey my domain. It's my little slice of heaven and a very clean slice right now. I feel blessed to have it to enjoy.

Spring means much more than green grass, flowers and warm temperatures; there are chores to be done this time of year, too. Some tasks are just work but others leave us especially grateful for the result as it leaves our heart happy.

The prompt this week is to consider the tasks that spring brings into your life and identify those which, despite the work, bring you a blessed reward. Do you break out the buckets and put the Magic Eraser to work to make the kitchen cabinets sparkle and shine, knowing that for at least a while the surfaces will be clean and fingerprint-free? Maybe spring means time behind a tiller to get the garden under way, but as you do, you can almost taste the fresh vegetables it will yield. Or perhaps this is the time of the year you pull everything out of the garage and give it a good cleaning, relishing the new organization and knowing things are back where they belong. No matter where you live, there will always be chores to do. The focus this week is on those we can be grateful for because of the finished result.

More thoughts on this concept are on my blog and, as usual, my layout is in the gallery.



Week 15: In good time and bad times
I'll be on your side forever more
That's what friends are for

I'm celebrating friendships as my blessing this week. What's more welcome than the sound of a friend's voice or the warmth of a friend's embrace. True friends are a treasure indeed...touching our hearts and strengthening our spirit with their words, their touch and sometimes just by being there. And having and appreciating those special people makes us a better person too...a double blessing.

The prompt this week is to document one of those amazing relationships in your life. You might choose an old friend who lives far away but whenever you do have an opportunity to be together, the conversation flows so easily it's as if you've never been apart. Perhaps you'll choose the person you call your best friend now...the one you can do anything or nothing at all with and still have the best time. Or maybe you're lucking enough to call a relative your best friend. Mothers, daughters, sisters and even husbands can be twice as important to us when they are our best friends, too.

Take time to be grateful for whoever is by your side forever more.

My pages are in the gallery along with the layout from last week. You'll find more about them and my thoughts on friendship on the blog.



Week 14: Sometimes we sort of sleepwalk through life...accepting things as they are and taking for granted many of the good things that surround us. Then life sends a wake-up call and if we're lucky, those blessings still exist and we have a renewed appreciation for them.

Life did just that in our family last Thursday, presenting us with a medical situation which fortunately turned out not to be serious. A hiccup in the continuum of good health, if you will. And the path of determining that the blissful state of wellness still remained was made smoother by a competent and caring medical team...in this case a team of unfamiliar professionals in a strange town. They made what could have been a difficult and frightening experience easy to bear; it was as if they were caring for one of their own.

It would be easy to make this week's prompt about appreciating your own good health or that of your loved ones...both are clearly blessings in our lives and merit mention in our year of gratitude. But I want to give you a different thought to ponder: Who have you encountered that went beyond just doing their job and made you feel reassured by their level of personal dedication? Is there a teacher who spent extra time with your or your child to insure success? Do you have a mechanic or some other repair person that you can turn to, knowing you'll not be taken advantage of and be given the same advice he would give a family member? Perhaps, like us, you have encountered health care professionals who see people not just as a patient but as a person and who invest the time and caring spirit in you as though you're the only person on their schedule for the day.

During the course of a day/week/month/year we're on the receiving end of many people who are doing their jobs. We should be grateful for those who give more than the minimum; they are blessings in our lives, ones that are often unappreciated.

My page is delayed as we've just returned from our trip but I hope to catch up within the next few days and have it in the gallery soon.