Grateful List #4: Lots

It's Thanksgiving week.  This is the time of year that people think about those things in life for which they are thankful.

My friend, Janet Broderick, preached about gratitude on Sunday at St. Peter's in Morristown.  It was a beautiful sermon and one I needed to hear.  Here's one of the points she eloquently made:

"It's not happiness that makes us grateful; 

it's gratitude that makes us happy."

What a revelation that was to me.  I've always thought that it's the things I have (not just stuff, but experiences, people in my life, places) that made me happy and that, in turn, makes me grateful. For those things (again, not just the stuff).  But that's not really it at all and that explains why the moments of gratitude are separated ... like dots on a timeline.  Why the time between the moments of gratitude are often unsatisfying.  

It's really the other way around.  Starting with a grateful heart, every minute, allows happiness to flood inside.  Starting from that place of gratitude, enables one to fully realize all the possibilities for joy that exist every day.  Starting from that place of gratitude unleashes the potential for unlimited ways to find happiness.

But gratitude is also a practice.  And those things we call a practice (living a life of gratitude, keeping healthy and fit, prayer or meditation, so many others), require practice.  We aren't good at them the minute we discover them.  We need to keep touching base with these things until they become second nature and are as deep-rooted in our lives as breathing.  Practice.

I needed that sermon on Sunday.  I've always been grateful for the things, people and places in my life. For my job, my fun, and all the rest.  But I've been miserable the last few months and now I know why ... I need to start from a position of gratefulness.  So let the practice begin.

Every day.

It's Thanksgiving Night ....

Today I'm grateful for

... my mom who makes the world's best turkey (for real)

... my children and all my family

... my friends here and there and my twitter family

... and Janet for her words last Sunday

Rice Krispie Treats ~ Grateful List #1

1. a great job
2. a zombie band
3. a couple of rice krispie treats

I am not really a Halloween person.  I don't recall liking Halloween even when I was a child.  I can only remember two costumes, put on over heavy winter coats, that I wore until I outgrew them.  When I could no longer fit into the fortune teller skirt, I was done with Halloween.

Have I ever mentioned that I really enjoy my job?  I really do.  One of the things I'm grateful for is working in an elementary school.  Seeing every day through the eyes of children is an opportunity to stay young--or at least young-thinking ....

See--it's orange and the lettering is kind of drippy.
I think it's pretty good for Halloween--for me. And you
really can't beat the earrings.

So yesterday I donned my 23-year-old skeleton earrings (my "costume" since my son was in preschool) and a grey and orange t-shirt that said Halloween to me in the nicest possible way to me and headed off to a busy day at the office, thinking I'd be glad when it was all over.  Special holidays are always busy at a school.  Extra heavy parent traffic, drop offs of party food, forgotten costume parts or concert attire, people arriving early for events just to be able to park on site and not have to walk up from a half a mile away--it seems as though all we do is screen people through the security system and scrutinize visitors in the monitor.  It was also (through a series of scheduling snafus, author day in the upper grades) so an assembly and writing workshops and Home and School Association representatives added to the festivities and general air of "there's stuff going on today."  

Lunchtime is when things really got busy.  Lots of moms arrived to help get kids into costumes and set up for classroom parties in Prek through 4th grades.  The 6th-8th grade band started gearing up to play for the costume parade--they were a zombie band this year.  Ten minutes before go time, the sky opened up to rain on our parade, so we shifted to Plan B:  the dreaded indoor parade.  Congested hallways and gyms and general mayhem but no one tripped on her princess or his Scream costume (and assorted other gorgeous or ghoulish getups), the band's Thriller was thrilling and it was over all too fast.  It was lovely and fun and very sweet and I'm grateful that I was there to enjoy it.

I was most grateful for the two giant homemade rice krispie treats that were left on my desk by two different thoughtful moms.  I'm in my 14th year at the school--I've worked there longer than anywhere else.  Homemade rice krispie treats are my favorite school party food and the only one I allow myself to indulge in now (most of the time).  I guess the word is out.  There's a certain feeling of security and belonging in having people indulge your not-so-secret cravings.  I'm grateful for that.  I ate them both, one in the morning, one after the parade.  No Weight Watchers guilt, either.  

Other highlights that prompted a profoundly grateful feeling that I'm definitely in the right place right now:

~ two very excited young ladies skipping up to 1st grade--is there anything more innocent and joyful than children skipping hand in hand?

~ Dorothy ... complete with gingham and braids.  Plus Uggs--and not red ones.  You just have to smile.

So I'm grateful for the big things tonight ... the blessing that is working every day at something that gives enormous joy and satisfaction ... and the little things ... like zombie trombone players, 6-year-olds skipping and rice krispie treats.

My cup runneth over.