2011 Gratitude Challenge Days 9, 10 & 11

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It’s November.  The month of Thanksgiving.  Brenda’s Gratitude Challenge (over at Garden of Learning) is not the only challenge happening this month.  I’ve seen 30 days of Thankfulness and a few others.  Same concept, different names.  I’ve even seen people participating on Facebook by posting thankful statuses.

One of my FB friends made a comment about how we should be thankful everyday of the year and not just for the 30 days in November.  She’s right.  We should be thankful every day of the year.   Her “complaint” reminds me of my own criticism of Feed the Hungry type programs that only seem to operate for Thanksgiving and Christmas.   The hungry and the poor need to eat every day of the year not just on those two holidays.  So I totally get where it is coming from by reminding us that we need to be thankful every day of the year.

So knowing that I should be thankful in all the months and not just November, why I am participating in this challenge and why doesn’t it irk me the way the “donate money to buy food to feed the hungry”?  Well, because I don’t take the time to express my thankfulness.  Some days (even in the 8 previous days) it’s been hard to find something to be thankful for.  Well you know something other than the basics.  Sometimes my attitude is just so stinky that I forget to be thankful for food, shelter, clothes.   And I forget to be thankful that I have the freedom to home school.  Or to be thankful that I have 4 beautiful daughters who are incredible and wonderful and bring so much joy into my life.  So participating in the Gratitude Challenge during the month of November is a reminder that I can and should find something to be thankful for each and every day.

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I meant to post the above bit in its own blog post on the 9th of November. I just didn't remember to post it. And yesterday? I don't even remember why I missed posting yesterday (11/10). Oh wait. I know it was cause I had 18 million things to do and I just didn't prioritize posting to my blog. So here's my one thing for 11/10: I am thankful that I can leave my daughters at home and go out to a really nice dinner and not have to either a) bring them with or b)find a babysitter. Outback had a special this week for Veterans and since my anniversary is next week, Honeybear and I went to Outback Steakhouse. Since the advent fast starts on Tuesday the timing was perfect.

So today is 11/11/11 and that means it’s Veteran’s Day.  Today I am I thankful a)in general for all the Veterans,  b) in particular for the Veterans I love dearly,  both of my grandfathers (both of whom were WWII veterans.  May their memories be eternal,  my father (Korean War Vet) Memory Eternal Daddy! and my husband (though he wasn’t ever in combat he was serving his country during the first Gulf War (1990), and the more recent Gulf conflict (2003) as well supporting missions such as Operation Joint Endeavor (The Bosnia thing) And speaking of that… in 3 days it would  be the anniversary of his homecoming from that deployment.  Our twins are “deployment babies” so I guess in a strange way I’m thankful for that deployment.

Thank you to ALL the veterans and their families for serving their country!

I shared this picture last year on Veteran’s Day.  It’s my daddy.

army photo

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