100 Beautiful Days – Day One

Like many of you my schedule is full!  When you look at the pages of my planner you will find a million markings of places to be and things to do, some scratched out and moved around and some anchored firmly in their slot, protected, not to be canceled.

My days are often long and I wear many hats!  The hours are filled with many wonderful, beautiful, hard and challenging things.  In my world, I am blessed to spend days planning and preparing for my family, educating my teenager, meeting with women who sharpen me and make me better, mentoring children at the school, walking through joys and triumphs with others and also weeping with those facing dark times.

I have the joy of visiting with my dad, spending time with my mom, having conversations with my adult son and daughters, sharing in Bible study with my one child left at home and working through life with my spouse.  There are days you will find me jumping and singing loudly in kid’s church, teaching a class of students at co-op, cleaning a cabin and preparing for church groups, writing a blog about natural health for my precious father-in-law, writing a newspaper article or teaching a class on essential oils.

Wow!  Just typing it all out makes me feel a little crazy! For that reason, it is so very important to keep it all in perspective!  To be thankful not stressful, to be overwhelmed with all I GET to do, not overwhelmed with all I HAVE to do.

I know that if you write your list of responsibilities down it may far exceed mine and that you can completely relate.  So, how do we keep a positive mindset?  How do we remind ourselves that we are blessed to have a full life?  For me it takes starting every day with God, I follow that with exercise and very often I combine the two!!  I have an intentional morning list of things to do and very near the top is Practice Gratitude!!  It may seem odd that I have to put that on a list and remind myself to be grateful but if I don’t then often I get too busy to see life for what it is, blessed – even in the hard stuff!

For the next 100 days, I will be sharing intention with you and hoping that you will walk through gratitude with me as I begin writing 100 Beautiful Days.  The intention is to see beauty in everything, from the difficult and overwhelming to the simple and lovely.  I hope that you will take this journey with me – share your own beautiful moments and let’s be intentional together!

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.  Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vison for tomorrow.”  Melody Beattie