Monthly Archives: October 2022

Be Grateful for Vegetables – They are Fun!

1 Reply

Recently, @BetteMidler posted this picture on Twitter – a BrocCollie and Collieflower!

This photo made me smile. In fact, I tried to re-create it…

Look for fun activities in your life with those you love!

Eat more veggies. Improve your diets. Have fun with vegetables!

#gratitudezero

Gratitude for Pumpkin

Leave a reply

This is a great time of year for the pumpkin! Meet “Big Jack” our pumpkin here locally at the Outlets. Children are given blank pages to create their own story about “Big Jack”. I wonder what they are writing? Pumpkins remind me of:

  • Foods: pies, cupcakes, breads, cookies, soups, drinks and more
  • Spices: mixing pumpkin spice in so many baked goods and drinks
  • Smells: pumpkin smells great, especially when mixed with other hot/cold spices
  • Memories: walks across pumpkin farms, pumpkin carving of Jack-O-Lanterns
  • Tastes: which is your favorite? muffins, pies, cookies, breads, spiced drinks
  • Sights: children picking out their pumpkins, children decorating pumpkins, pumpkins next to front doors with lights at night. I remember when a neighbor placed their young toddler inside a cut out pumpkin, put the cap on and took a photo of the baby inside the pumpkin
  • Touching Pumpkins: scooping out the insides of the pumpkins (seeds etc.), smashing pumpkins, putting a light inside a pumpkin, drawing faces on pumpkins, cutting out/ fixing the cap on the pumpkin

This pumpkin season makes me feel happy. How ’bout you?

#gratitudezero

Appreciate the Spirit of Exploring Gratitude

Leave a reply

A dear friend in Canada shared this posting with me during her Thanksgiving. What an exploration of gratitude! I invite you to take a moment to reflect upon the various dimensions of walking along the pathway of gratitude in your own life:

  • Some of you will reflect upon your present circumstances in the context of whatever has happened to you in the past. (This might become part of the #gratitudelite series.)
  • Will your reflections help you design a new pathway to your future? How so? Depending on your musings for your future, you may even wander into the #gratitudeultra series.
  • Others may focus on gratitude during your own Thanksgiving holiday. You may focus on preparation for the upcoming meal. A Thanksgiving meal may be an annual larger gathering of family, and/or friends which turns the availability of food into an extension of old favorites, long time family memories of meals gone by, and stories shared again with family, and/or even with strangers who may become old friends. (Focusing on favorite foods, and repeated stories might become part of the #gratitudezero series.)
  • Read the first line of the highlighted image above: “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life”! Wow, what a densely packed statement. Consider what you think is enough gratefulness within your own life?
  • But, also reflect upon what you accept or deny in your own life as you define joy and happiness?
  • As you explore various options for gratitude where do you find “confusion”, versus which choices or options seem crystal “clear” or best within your own life or for you?
  • Finally, consider that the author invited you to even explore what causes you to feel “chaos” within your own mind in contrast to an impression of “order” in your life?

My friend sent this image to me with a beautiful line “Grateful for our friendship…”

Appreciate this spirit of gratitude as you enjoy your own Thanksgiving holiday.

#gratitudeultra

Focus on the Complexity of Water – Multiple Dimensions

4 Replies

Water has so many different purposes and applications. We are reminded of the power of water this week in Florida with hurricane IAN. Water is special as it is critical for:

  • sacred religious rituals like Baptisms, blessings, prayers, births and deaths
  • life as one cannot live very many days without water
  • production of power for utilities
  • cooling systems as in air conditioning
  • cleaning one’s body and clothing
  • sporting events like surfing, paddle boarding, skiing, kayaking, canoeing, boating
  • transportation as in cruising, transporting goods and services around the world

Water makes up the composition of most of the cells in our bodies. Blessed water is changed when one studies the angle at which our molecules connect.

Water is often so beautiful and scenic which is why people love to go to the beach and to live near the beach or lake front, riverside, or even on a pond in the country.

Water is not static but may be dynamic as in a water fall which ripples or roars as in Niagara Falls.

This week find gratitude in studying the complexity and multiple dimensions of water. Its beauty, but power is never ending. IAN reminds us that water should not be taken for granted as it may surge, rise, suck one under, drown, bury, and destroy.

Given the full scope, range, and power of water, give gratitude for water as it is a life form that is dynamic, necessary, and ever changing.

#gratitudeultra