Gratitude Journal 2009

Have you ever compiled a list of some of the things you are grateful for? I used a suggestion that Oprah came up with some time last year. It's called a "gratitude journal". It's basically a pretty fabric colored book I got from Barnes and Noble filled with lined paper. It is pictured above.

What I did for a large part last year, was every night before I went to bed, I would write in it three things I was grateful for that happened that day. It helped me to focus on some of the smallest things I was taking for granted each day. It was also a great way to look back at some things from last year.

Here are some examples of the things I wrote in my journal: 1. Seeing Kailee throw a sticky ball and it sticks where she throws it. 2. Lemon shrimp. 3. Listening to Kailee scream when she laughs.

I started to include things that I could look back and smile about too. Things that may not have happened that day, but that I could remember and have that warm and fuzzy feeling all over. Like these, the smell of a rainy day when everything is all wet, the way a cold wind feels blowing across your face and through your hair, or watching people try to jump the waves in the ocean and hearing them laugh!

As you can tell I have included so many things in my journal. I want to continue that tradition through this year since it takes the focus off the negative and returns things back to the positive. Trust me, if you search for them, you can always find at least three things, sometimes more. Sometimes, it's the beautiful pastel colors of pink, blue and green in a sunset or the way something smells like apple pie, that takes you back to that fall, cold morning where you and your family went to pick apples while crunching through the fallen leaves on the ground.

It is meant to bring you back to a happy place at the end of a long winded day. Imagine what life would be like if we remained focused on those moments and not the ones that seem to devastate our days, how something so small can blow up into something so large. I think it's time to change and remember the little things. Sometimes it's the little things that matter most.