Tonight, I am grateful for meals with conversation. For too many years of my life, I ate meals in total silence or to the noise of a tv. My world has changed for the better, and now, meals are spent accompanied by conversation. Sometimes it is serious, sometimes it includes laughter, but usually it is thought-provoking or just sharing about the day’s events. No matter the topic, I feel wanted, needed, and very loved.

I am grateful for stacks of paperwork and mail and stuff gone through and purged.

I am grateful for all of the help we are receiving as we build a home for our future. Cosmo, Paul, MJ, Hong, Dave, Dad, Mike, Jamie, Fletch, Maria, Tim, Ron, Allen, Duane, Dana and her boys, and now this coming weekend – John and Linda, David and Julie…

I am grateful for all of the love that is going into this home, evidenced in every room, through gifts given to us by Ken and Karen, Dwight, Angela, Michelle, Dad, Mandrae and Karissa and their children, Elaine, Linda, Geri, Delores…

I am grateful for a mailbox with a flag – old school and traditional, and I love it, rust and all.

I am grateful for the sound tires make when rolling slowly over a rock driveway.

I am grateful for hand-written thank you cards sent in the mail. This is a good month to start that practice of just telling someone “thank you” for the simplest of things.

I am grateful for cleaned-out drawers.

I am grateful that all it takes for me to have God’s ear is to speak to Him. I don’t have to go to a certain place, I don’t have to prepare myself, I don’t have to ask permission. I just have to open my mouth, or my mind, or my heart, or my thoughts. He hears me even when I have no audible words.

I am grateful for a little 2-year-old prayer on the phone this evening, mostly unintelligible, with the exception of “Ama’s house,” “Amen,” and “Wuv you.”

I am grateful for a boss who understands gratitude.

I am grateful for bandaids and tissues and dryer sheets and baby wipes, and an abundance of them.

I am grateful for that feeling I get when I am opening an Amazon box of something I ordered as a gift for someone else.

I am grateful for that feeling I get when giving a gift to someone, and I am grateful for the feeling I get when I can see or hear how happy they are to receive it.

And tonight, I am grateful for living examples of negativity. They show me who I do not want to be.

Purge the negativity. Talk more about your blessings than you talk about your burdens. And write someone a “thank you,” just because.