The Gratitude Challenge – Day 22
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 22
“I can’t do this!”
I’m talking to one of my best friends, she’s 62, and she’s a single mom of one too. I call her because I am losing it, my schoolwork is due, I’m sick and my kid is giving me a hard time with homework. What I need now is an extra pair of hands, another measure of patience, and some hot chicken soup.
“I want to quit! I don’t see the point in pushing myself in school, with all of this going on.” She interrupts me.
“Hold on B— this is just a hard week, turn in what you can for school and then make a plan to get more done. As far as the Tween is concerned, its just 4th grade and it’s just this week. Get in bed with your laptop and finish what you can and turn it in for school, then get some rest. And call out sick. That’s what sick time is there for. You won’t catch me working myself to death. And you have to take care of yourself, *Eubie Blake said if he knew he was going to live that long, he would’ve taken better care of himself.” She starts to laugh.
She offers more stories of her experience when her child was the same age as mine, and as I listen I snort and sneeze and cough and calm down.
“If you’d called me earlier I would’ve brought you some chicken soup.”
Today I am grateful for my wise friends, for my parents whose experience and advice light the way when it gets cloudy or dark. I’m grateful for those that have walked before me and are gracious and compassionate to share the lessons they have learned along the way.
*Eubie Blake, a composer, lived to be 100 years old.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 21
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 21
What is a Book?
by Lora Duneta
A book is pages, pictures and words
A book is animals, people and birds
A book is stories of queens and kings
Poems and songs- so many things!
Curled in a corner where I can hide
With a book I can journey far and wide
Though it’s only paper from end to end
A book is a very special friend.
Where would we be without the wordsmiths, the poets and playwrights, the journalists and critics, the novelists? Just like the musicians and vocalists who give their talents to provide a soundtrack to our lives, the writers and journalists and poets and playwrights are putting it all down on the page gifting us with knowledge and wisdom, insight, and entertainment.
I am grateful for all the writers and books that have shaped my life, from Dr. Seuss’ “Oh The Places You Will Go” to Judy Blume’s, “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret.” From Junot Diaz’ “Drown” to Sigred Nunez’ “The Last of Her Kind.”
These books are my very special friends; I lose myself in the pages and find parts of myself in all of their characters and how wonderful it is to see yourself on the page!
Today I am grateful for books.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 20
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 20
Today some of the worst storms are drenching my city, causing mudslides, evacuations and power outages to thousands of homes. I know the rest of the country makes fun of Angelinos and the rain, we do prefer our sunshine thank you very much, but we know how much we need the rain.
We need the rain in our own lives too.
When Mother Nature decides to flex, we change things up, go to rainy day schedule (remember that?) and get out of our routine.
Today I am grateful for the rainy day schedule that makes me slow down (along with the head cold I have) and be still. These rainy days, the funky gray days, are down days, days when we put routine aside, make a pot of something warm and pull our loved ones close. I’m grateful for these days, because I put expectations (and “to do” lists) aside and go with the flow of nature, and flowing feels nice.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 19
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 19
As we head into the third week of January I wonder how many of you are still working out? Have you failed your diets or have they failed you?
Yes, I can appreciate the dedication and discipline it takes to sculpt one’s body, but as I drive past all the billboards with advertisements for lap bands and plastic surgery, I worry about our desire for perfection.
Today I’m grateful for the women and men who maintain a healthy weight. I’m grateful for plump waists and soft arms. I’m grateful that we are all so different and our bodies are amazing just as they are.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 18
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 18
Everyone has at least one. A complainer. Nothing is EVER right for this person. You know them; I’ve seen your eyes roll when you recognize their number on the phone. I’ve heard the respectful “uh-huhs” while you stood in line and they ran down their litany of complaints as you placed your groceries on the conveyor belt.
When I listen to the my “complainers,” they remind me of everything that I have to be grateful for, especially those “complainers” who have so much, but don’t realize it. My father would say, “How can they complain with a silver spoon in their mouth?”
Exactly.
I’m grateful for those who complain, because they remind me of how much I have to be grateful for.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 17
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 17
Molly is a dalmation that loves attention. She belongs to a friend of mine and greets me at the door barking as if she’s never seen me before (even though I was just here a week ago), her whole body wiggling, her tail whipping back and forth like a windshield wiper on speed. Her owner opens the door, half bent over, hanging on to Molly’s collar, lest she bolt out of the house running, sniffing and peeing her way down the street. Like most dogs, Molly has no respect of persons. It didn’t take much for her to accept me. Molly wouldn’t care if I had blue hair and elbows coming out of my shins, as long as I spoke to her and petted her head, she’d be fine. As I sit and type now, she’s looking at me with soulful eyes and occasionally coming over to plop her head in my lap and stare at the screen, as if to say, “Are you writing about me? Please write about me.”
Today I’m grateful for our four-legged furry friends, the pedigreed and the mutts, the trained and the ones that need extra attention. We pretty much accept animals how they come to us and I’m grateful for that and wish we did more of that with each other.
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 16
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 16
There is nothing like the touch of another human being. A leg thrown over you and pulling you close after making love, the brush of someone’s skin on your back, the caress of a hand on your hair.
“That’s so soothing,” my lover says as my hand sweeps over their chest and tummy. My daughter likes circles smoothed into her back as she drifts off to sleep. I love the big circling hugs, the one’s that feel as though you’ve just slipped into warm water. I found these facts on touch:
- Touch is the first sense to develop in humans, and may be the last to fade
- there are approximately 5 million touch receptors in our skin– 3000 in a finger tip
- a touch of any kind can reduce the heart rate and lower blood pressure
Today I’m grateful for skin-to-skin contact, touch, and hands and hearts that know how and when.
Cue Diana Ross somebody! “Reach out and touch (somebody’s hand)” Need I say more?
- Aunt B
The Gratitude Challenge – Day 15
I’d like to invite you to take the Gratitude Challenge with me. Every day during the month of January join me in setting an intentional attitude of gratitude by writing about one thing you are grateful for. Hopefully our new attitude will last beyond January and carry us throughout the year. Email your gratitude to me at AuntB@MamasHealth.com or write below in the comments.
Day 15
Lately I find myself turning to crafting whenever I have a free moment. My grandmother taught me to crochet, and for the longest I could only crochet a long string, loose for a number of stitches then tight, then loose again… well you get the picture. This is kind of gross, but often what I crocheted looked like one of those diagrams of a twisted bowel that would benefit from a colonic.
I kept coming back to crochet, teaching myself different stitches and learning how to read patterns. It’s a working meditation for me, my eyes are taken with the colors, my fingers enjoy the texture of the yarn and a beautiful scarf or blanket is the end result.
Today I am grateful for crocheting and knitting. A craft in which you are able to weave yarn with love and create soft things to wrap around the folks in our lives we love.
- Aunt B
