What a life! Every day I thank the stars that I am able to live this life I have. Even when adversity is thrown my way, I always have something to be thankful for. I sincerely wish that everyone could experience this way of living.
I go to bed when I am tired and get up when I am ready. I almost never fail to fall asleep soon as my head hits the pillow. Stress happens, but not anything that I can't handle. The time clock I punch is regulated by sunrise and sunset. I breath clean country air (except for when the neighboring dairy farm cleans their barn or the manure guys bring a load in...but that just smells like reality to me). I drink water from a well that is 400+ feet deep and it comes up cold and sweet, like God intended. You can't get water like that in a bottle. I eat mostly organic food that I mostly grow myself. I preserve summer harvests to enjoy in the cold of winter, although we usually have something growing year round! When it is time for dinner, I take my picking basket and head outside to peruse the "aisles" of my personal grocery. I can bake my own bread, make my own apple butter or strawberry jam to go with it. I hang my clothes outside on a line and they come in smelling like sunshine and fresh air, instead of fabric softener. I live with someone whom I love more than words, who makes me laugh and treats me like a princess.
I don't need much in the way of material goods which is a good thing, because I don't have a lot of that anymore. Yet I feel richer than any king because after 25 years of chasing success in a career that was took too much of my life away from me and my family, I finally realized that you really can't buy happiness. One key to realy happiness is having someone in your life who compliments you in such a way that it allows you to be secure in your relationship, to have complete trust in that other person, which in turn allows you the freedom to become "all that you can be".I don't personally know too many people who actually have that in their lives and because I do, it is one of the things that I am most and truly thankful for. I know that I am a very lucky person in that regard and never, never take it for granted in any way. I love you, honey.
I also love my parents, my brother, my kids, my grandkids, my inlaws (past and present), my friends and am thankful for each and everyone of them. I feel blessed to have been given a rare and special childhood, one from which I have not a single bad memory. Thanks, Mom and Dad. I am thankful that I was lucky enough to have had all my grandparents alive until I was well into adulthood and that I have wonderful memories from each of them.
I am thankful that I have intelligence, compassion, strength and talents. I use them as wisely as I can and try to make my world a better place so that my grandchildren will inherit a world as beautiful as the one I did.
Happy Thanksgiving.
