Living-Deliberately.com

This blog will be taking a vacation through Christmas. May all of you have a blessed and peaceful holiday season. I’m spending mine quietly with my family, thinking through  this major life change, and sifting through what needs to get done.  I’d like to bake some bread again, walk through the woods, and face a new year fresh.

~ See you on the other side!

5 Things I’m Thankful For, The Week Before Christmas:

• the magical fun of playing Santa Claus with children
• the holy reality of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
• for sustanence, in it’s many forms
• for snow, that covers ugliness, at least for a little while
• music, and how somewhere, there is a song for every mood and place

How about it readers? Got a list to share? post it in the comments.

My 5 things I’m thankful for this week:

• special one-on-one time with my daughter.
•  reliable transportation and the dad who made it that way; I can’t imagine the last few weeks without it
• irony. The “flip side” lends valuable perspective
• my confessor
• friends, friends, friends

It felt like a good habit I didn’t want to let go of…..so here are five things I’m thankful for this Wednesday:

• great friends who stick up for me but also don’t let me take myself toooooo seriously!
• Tennessee….I love it!
• smart lawyers who do their jobs well
• white sunshine in a  true blue sky
• the art of a well-made pb & j

One more, in honor of a very special day…. a little girl ’round these parts turns 10 today. She is living sunshine, a jolt of feminine in a household of brothers, and she adds beauty and creativity to everything she does. I can’t wait to see the fantastic woman she’s going to become and miss those sweet baby days of dolls and dress up all at the same time.  Once upon a time I had two daughters and I’m every day grateful that God let us keep at least one here with us. Life would never be the same without her. Happy Birthday baby!

Around here we’ve had the Macy’s parade, the turkey will be in the oven longer (power outage caused a delay), the chex mix is plenteous, and the kids are wondering what happened to lunch-being-at-lunchtime.

What’s going on at your house?

I usually love to talk about food, try new recipes, and enjoy old favorites like French Silk pie. This year, mom and sis did all of the cooking.  What new recipes are/were on your Thanksgiving table and what old favorites would it not be the same without? I’ve been thinking too, this year, of those who are in restuarants for the day…that’s foreign to my experieince but now I’m all curious as to what’s it’s like. What is like to work on Thanksgiving Day?

Share your story or your link…what’s Thanksgiving Day like in your family?

I was thinking today about the things I’m thankful for, the things other list that they’re thankful for, and what motivates us all to choose what we do. It’s just thinking out loud, and certainly not definitive, but I guess everything on our lists is something that, either through it’s presense or absense, has a positive impact on our lives or the lives of those we love. My next thought was how Living Deliberately, and that process of identification and analysis about each how each aspect of our lives contributes to our bigger picture, actually leads to a more thankful life because as a result, less is taken for granted. The slush is removed from life, things are taken down to their simplified and streamlined truth, and what’s left is truly wanted and valued.

It takes courage and bravery to look at something that may be damaging in our lives and then to do something about it. In the case of debt annhilation, it takes sacrifice. When striving to live more healthfully, it will often require more effort, as convenience products are often disregarded for their wastefullness or lack of nutritonal worth. What’s left at the end of this process though is honest reality; no more pretense, denial, or self-medication. “It is what it is” has become one of my favorite sayings because it looks at the truth of what something is at it’s core, and leaves me only with the task of dealing with my own response to it and not with the added option of trying to control or change what is not within my abilty to do so with.

That led me today to the Serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept what I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

May each of you have a wonderful day, whatever setting you may be within.

• that my sis will be here in a few hours, with my neice, and her pregnant belly containing my nephew! I can’t wait to see them!!!
• for my brother-in-law, who taught me to do what is going to support my family
• for the potential of optimism
• for awesome blog commenters….you guys all are such an encouragement!
• for guitar music, accoustic and tender. Sometimes it’s just as close to a hug as one can get.

List yours in the comments or post a link! Your lists are always great!

Next week is Thanksgiving, as the world remembers, and as I’ve been kind of ignoring. The holidays sure are going to be different this year. But Thankfulness always applies and I thought a little list would be a good idea today. As ever, if you join in, either leave a comment or your link so I can check ‘em out!

I’m Thankful For:

• Friends. They are having a profound effect on my life right now.
• Fall. Where I am now is peak color…. a little bonus because where I was it was all over and winter has set in.
• Really intense dark chocolate cheesecake
• Time and space to think. To breathe.
• Family.

• my healthy, homey, parish that daily demonstrates the fullness of Christ and the church
• my two fantastic and much-loved priests and our matushkas; may God bless them.
• vision, the non-ocular type
• milk chocolate, in the 40% cacoa range
• all the funny things my kids say

Those are mine this week;  I really enjoyed reading all of yours last week! If you name 5 things you are thankful for on the Countdown to Thanksgiving, make sure to leave your link in the comments!

Each Wednesday until Thanksgiving I’m going to list 5 things I’m thankful for. I invite you to do the same and leave your blog link in the comments.

• rooms that are defined by purpose and boundary
• a warm squeeze on the hand
• slowly falling leaves
• family (and after a week like last week, that’s no pat answer!)
• surprise chocolate bars