Holiday Time

So, somehow it’s already time for Thanksgiving. Every year it seems like it comes faster and I just can’t believe it’s time to get together for Thanksgiving. Before we know it, it will be Christmas and we’ll be looking at 2011. Remember when the year 2000 seemed so far away? Crazy!

Anyway, it’s always fun to get ready for the holidays. Now that I’m a “grown up” it’s fun to get to pack my bags and go stay at my mom’s house for a few days. The house is full of people, all of our dogs get to run around and play together and it’s just a perfect setting. My family has always been large and get-togethers are loud, hectic and some of my favorite memories. We have to set up tables and chairs in the garage to fit everyone around a table and there’s always friends or coworkers that are invited to come along with one of us so that no one spends the holiday alone. There’s never pressure to stay for the right amount of time and everyone understands that we all have many places to be. It’s just a time to be together with no agenda. Of course, we take pictures, there’s more food than we can eat and we’ll open gifts (at Christmas), but it’s not scheduled or pressured. That may be why I like it so much. The purpose of getting together is just that: to be together. How often is the entire family in the same house?

I look forward to traditions like watching Christmas Vacation with my family and sipping hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps the night before Thanksgiving. Staying up all night and shopping with the crazy people on Black Friday. Finding the pickle in the Christmas Tree with my cousins. Raising my candle at midnight when we sing Silent Night at church on Christmas Eve.

There’s no work to worry about. No schedules or emails, just family and friends enjoying time together. And that, my friends is why it’s the best time of year.

live.

“we live, we love, we forgive and never give up ‘cuz the days we are given are gifts from above, and today we remember to live and to love”

These are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs lately. It’s a song called “We Live” by a band called Superchick. Every once in awhile, I love to listen to KLOVE on the radio. It’s a Christian radio station and the songs on it are just so good. Anyway, this song always gets stuck in my head and I just love the message of it.

How often do we waste time worrying about stupid things in life? Why not let all that go and enjoy life and the days we’re blessed with? It shouldn’t be a sudden death of someone close to us to remind us to live life to the fullest. Don’t go around with grudges. Don’t spend time being mad.  Surely there’s something good in your life that you’re blessed with. I promise that if you think about it, there are tons of blessings in your life worth being happy about.

It’s Thanksgiving week. Take a minute to be truly thankful. There are millions of people who are jobless, who have lost their homes, who have terminal illnesses, and who are alone in this world.

If you have your health, be thankful. If you have family, be thankful. If you have a place to rest your head, be thankful. If you have a full belly, be thankful.

I’m almost obsessed with being thankful lately and if you’ve read my last post, you know why. It’s just so easy to get down on yourself and the crap that comes in life and let that outweigh the good.

Live life fully. Be happy. Forgive the person who has hurt you the most. Love your friends, family, coworkers and strangers on the streets. I promise that you’ll be happier because of it.

… and, if you get a chance, look up this song. It’s fantastic and it puts me in a good mood.

Thankful

So today at work, we had a department Thanksgiving lunch. Each year, we go around the table and everyone shares what they are thankful for. Of course everyone says they are thankful for their families and friends and their job and it's nice to hear that we are all blessed. As my turn came around the table, all I could think about was how thankful I am that I am able to get out of bed every day and walk.
Not many people at work know my "story" or understand that only 3 years ago, I was laying in a bed and couldn't feel anything from my waist down. The doctors told me that I may never walk again and I told them they were wrong. I'm thankful that I had the therapists to work with me for hours every day and teach me how to walk and adapt. I'm thankful that I had the doctors to care for me and to fix my body through surgery. I'm thankful for the nurses who tended to my needs and helped to keep me comfortable. I'm extremely thankful to my family for staying with me and keeping me company during the nights in the hospital and the days in physical therapy and the long weekends in the hospital when my friends were all off on adventures and I was lonely. I'm thankful that God gave me the strength to get out of bed and work in therapy for so many months.
You might think that I have been well for so long that I don't remember how far I've come, but I promise you that that isn't the truth. Every single day, I thank God that I can walk. That means I'm thankful that I can do things like the laundry and vaccum and walk at the park. Even the not so fun things in life are better to me because I'm able to do them on my own without a wheelchair and I won't ever forget that.
I know this post is redundant, but I can never ever say or convey how lucky and truly thankful I am to be where I am at in life.

I'm also thankful that I have a loving husband and supportive family. I have a job that I don't love, but it's not horrible and it allows me to do the things in life that I want to do. I have a snuggly puppy dog who brings joy to my life. We live in a good neighborhood and our neighbors are friendly and keep watch on our home. There is not much more that I could want from life and it's nice to take some time to remember and share that.

What are you thankful for?

compliments

As a human, I think it’s just nice to get compliments. I’m talking about sincere, honest compliments. The kind from strangers or co-workers because they mean it, not from your mom because she’s obligated to say something nice about you. I guess I never thought about the value of a random comment on a person’s day until today.

I walked into work at 7 a.m. after little sleep and with no motivation for the coming work day. Not ten minutes after I sat down, one of the girls came over and said “you’re looking good. Have you lost weight?” I was almost stunned. You see, I’ve been working out more lately than I ever have. I’ve been much better about what I eat. And I can’t get this damn weight off of my body. I’ve lost 5 pounds here and there, but not the numbers that I feel like I deserve. Needless to say, my opinion of my weight loss thus far isn’t really  a positive one and I don’t feel any smaller.

But she noticed.

And somehow, that made my entire day better. It made skipping a cinnamon roll at the café for breakfast even easier. It’s motivation to keep working hard, because even if I don’t see it, someone else does.

And that, my friends, is why a compliment is so powerful.

The next time you notice something nice about a person or their actions, say something. Because you just never know the impact it might have.

getting back to blogging

i discovered a few blogs that i had throughout college recently and it's been so much fun to read them. i used to write all the time and i never knew how much it would mean to me to be able to take myself back to a moment in time just because i spent a few minutes and wrote about it.


it's been really neat because i've been able to read all of those posts to tyler. he knows my stories about being in the hospital because of my back. he knows the stories of losing my dad. but somehow, i captured little details during my posts of that time that have allowed me to teach him more about my past and what i've been through. it reminded me, too, that i've come a long way in three years, but that i'd never want to forget the details of those events.


my life isn't that exciting. i always wonder what makes people want to blog and i wonder if it's because they think their life is so exciting that the entire world needs to read about it. that's not why i'm writing mine down. i'm writing it for me. so that in 3 years, i can log on and look back and remember in better detail what i've been through. i encourage you to write your stories down too.