Monday, May 3, 2010

#5 - A gratitude journal.

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Oprah did a show years ago and suggested that everyone keep a gratitude journal. This is my gratitude journal. It's small, only about 4" by 6", but is the perfect size to sit on my nightstand as a reminder to jot down things that I am grateful for.

Oprah had suggested that you write down 5 things that you were grateful for that day, and by doing so, we would focus on that which was good in our lives instead of what wasn't. (Pretty much why I started this blog too.) She mentioned that everyone could think of 5 things in a day, no matter how silly or small they might seem.

The first entry in this journal is dated April 19, 1997. Four entries later, the journal disappeared. It boggled my mind. Where in the world could that have gone?

I searched high and low for it and it was no where to be found. And isn't that SO frustrating? When there is no logical explanation as to where something might have gone, that no one else would have (or should have) touched? So if you are the only one who would have moved it, and you know you didn't - how could it be gone????

Well ... one day, quite some time later, I was in my storage room and saw that I had a laundry basket full of random odds and ends and things that had never found a home, other than being put in that laundry basket waiting for their ultimate resting place (like I have already mentioned here), and lo and behold at the VERY bottom (seriously) of that basket of randomness was my gratitude journal! I was SO happy that it had resurfaced!!!! How, when, why, I couldn't tell you ... but that night, I made another entry in the journal and it was dated November 25, 2006. (Don't ever give up on finding something in the black abyss of your home - until you move and it still hasn't shown up.)

That many years later, it was really sweet to read what I had been grateful for when my babies were, well, still little.

April 19, 1997 - I am grateful ...

... for all the food and water I can eat, when so many are without.

... that Elliott and Sophie played outside most of the day.

... for a cuddly little Sophie.

... to finally have bought new light fixtures for the bedrooms - WHAT a difference!

... that Elliott tells me he loves me many times a day!!!

6 comments:

  1. I love this...I do this too. I have done one for each of my daughters too..over a year I wrote in it everyday to tell them why I was thankful for them that day...365 days...It was the best gift ever..they treasure their journals. Hugs my friend. xoxo

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  2. I love this! What a clever idea. It really makes a person focus on the good and the blessings.

    Saw you on Koralee's blog and came to visit!

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  3. i think i'll copy koralee's idea...very cute. except i'm already behind. shoot.

    elliott does say "i love you" a lot, huh? love him.

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  4. I'm grateful for my sister Polly.....
    brave and beautiful....

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  5. what a co-inky-dink. i found my "gratitude journal" a couple days ago, too. my last entry...sept. 2002
    oh boy! i do have several journals however. so, i have been writing.

    " i am grateful to finally know how to leave a comment on my sisters blog so she will stop asking me...why didn't you leave a comment bingy!"

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  6. I started a journal with Robby when he was little. Actually it was his idea. It stayed in his room and we would write back in forth to each other. It was fun. He would do something special, and I would go to write in it, and there would be a message he had written to me. It was just sitting there waiting for me to read it! It was our secret journal. It was very cute! ;}

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