Gratitude

This week has been relatively uneventful as far as weeks go. I am happily sitting at my laptop with my dogs playing around me and my mostly full coffee cup create a warm, velvety sense of home with every little sip. Soon, I will get a few miles in on the treadmill because it's rainy here today and will then shower leisurely and meet my dad for some lunch at Whole Foods. We'll meander around the store and eventually find ourselves holding cups of warm soup and cornbread or a salad with crisp vegetables and tasty toppings. There will be no agenda today and nowhere of consequence that I have to be. These are the days that I miss when life is moving to fast and everything feels just a little too crazy. These are the days that make me love and live for the weekends.

Thinking through things though, if we didn't have the crazy weeks that made us want to pull out hair out, would we appreciate the calm quite blanket of Saturday as much? If I had weeks that milled along and created no time restrictions and days full of me going to school, having an easy day with my students and then coming home and relaxing for the evening, would I feel the push and drive to get to my warm and cozy couch with my mug of coffee on Saturday morning? I think the answer is almost definitely no, I wouldn't.

Today, I am thankful for my crazy life. Maybe it's the promise soft rain or the good coffee making say this, or even the still-present high from The Brit texting yesterday to say hello from across an ocean, but I just feel gratitude today.

I am grateful to have a job. While I don't love all things about my job, in reality, who does? I love that I get to work with little kids every day and show them how to become better human beings. I may suck the life from me regularly and I may not always sound happy to be there. Sometimes I completely lose it but hands-down, I love those babies. I would bring any one of them home tomorrow if the need arose and try to make their lives a little better. I am thankful for how relatively mundane the "problems" in my life compared to theirs and humbled at how easy my life is comparatively speaking. My difficult circumstances can usually be taken care of if I simply step and and think through a few simple steps. For this, I grateful.

I'm keeping today's post simple in homage to this peaceful Saturday. A few more of the things that make me grateful...

The rain While too much of it makes me grumpy, its gentle showers are peaceful and renewing. There's nothing like enjoying a good book and cup of coffee while the sounds of rain tapping at the window serenade.

Friends They keep me grounded and serve as my sounding board for all things. I have a lot of wonderful people in my life — new friends and old friends — and they all make my life a little happier.

A killer workout While I usually dread getting started, workouts are a very necessary part of my life 5 or 6 days a week. There is nothing like the feeling you get when you just killed a workout and torched away some serious calories. Also, nothing beats the private therapy session that a good run can bring on.

Scarves I'm just in love with them. I have nothing overly lovely to say here as they are simply scarves. But seriously, aren't they wonderful? For warmth, for fashion, and for covering imperfections you might want to hide. Wonderful.

Coffee I've mentioned it twice in this post so surely it deserves homage. Warm, bold, creamer-flavored coffee is absolutely my favorite way to start my day. I don't need 3 or 4 cups, just one nice perfectly concocted mug of deliciousness and caffeine.

iPhones I have no idea what I would do without my phone. I am so hopelessly connected to it that I feel I have lost a limb when I forget it at home or it dies. It's my house phone, my portable computer, my address book, my photo book, and the keeper of all my information. It's pretty sad how lost I am without it.

Notebooks As I sit at type on my laptop, I must admit that it's just not quite as cathartic as writing in a good, old-fashioned notebook. The smell of the paper, the feel of the binding and the pure feeling of imagination and promise that a notebook brings me is unlike anything else. Writing in a pretty notebook feels magical. Anyone else feel like this?

Today It is a day for gratitude and introspection. And for the very chance of that, I'm grateful. Life is good.