by Kat | Nov 3, 2025 | General, Welcome
Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life. — Rumi
November… whew. This year is flying, isn’t it? Too darned fast, if you ask me… though if I focus on headlines, the news, and all that chaos, it makes it feel like one long-ass year.
I am beyond privileged that I do not have to even give headlines, news, and chaos one scintilla of my attention. I know… I am so, so fortunate. So I consume what news I seek out, I am trying not to worry about things I cannot control, but rather… give attention (and resources as I am able) to causes that inspire me.
So I thought that this November, I would turn my attention to finding gratitude in my days… gratitudes that I will be sharing with you occasionally. Since about mid-July, I have been journaling about gratitude… and while I am not steadily writing daily about gratitude… it has become a focus in my mind. What started as a “task” has become something more like a meditation to the day. A very good thing!
This morning, I am going to share three very good things from last week (it was an exceptionally amazing week!!)
Gratitude One: I was truly worried about Heidi being induced… but that was wasted worry because on Tuesday, October 28, she and Christian welcomed a new baby to their family! Odette Elizabeth arrived late Tuesday night. She is perfect in every way! Yes, Odette arrived before her sweater was done! But… it is so close to the finish, I expect it will be in the mail to Heidi soon!
Gratitude Two: After a LONG summers nap, I pulled out my sourdough starter from the refrigerator. It was last given any attention way back in May! And after just a couple of days feedings it was back and raring to go! I baked bread on Friday morning and it was such a delight to have that fresh baked bread smell in the house again with the added boon of a delicious loaf of sourdough bread to eat!!
Gratitude Three: Time change… I know… I know! Even though no one else in my house was happy about the time change it was so nice to walk in the light on an early Sunday morning! I won’t need my headlamp, at least for a few more weeks, and that makes me happy! The other curious benefit to time change was the deliciously “slow” Sunday morning. The neighborhood was quiet, the house was quiet… ahhh!
So welcome, November… I am looking forward to your gratitude focus this month!
Header photo by Brett Sayles
by Kat | Jul 14, 2025 | General, In This Moment
Is for finding gratitude…
Thank you so much for all your thoughts and well wishes for me last week. Gratitude Number One… I am so thankful for all of you!
Not only was it a “test-a-thon” of a week… I was also tested with the road construction! Yes, if you are in Pittsburgh and you think every road is under construction…. you’d be right. Both the tests and the roads tested the limits of my patience. I survived… and I am grateful. Gratitude Number Two… surviving is absolutely something to be grateful for.
All the test results came back within “normal ranges” which is a very good thing. Gratitude Number Three… being tested and having good results.
I am hopeful that as the week progresses finding gratitude will become easier and easier.
Happy Monday everyone!
by Kat | Apr 7, 2025 | General, In This Moment
is for sharing some gratitudes.
Gratitude number one… two weeks ago a my ex’s wife died very, very unexpectedly. She and I had a complicated relationship, but she was an amazing step-mother/grandmother and Vivi, especially, has been struggling with this loss and I really did not know what to do to help… so I reached out to Carole with hopes that she might know some books that might help with children’s grief. She sent me an amazing list of books that span the ages of my grandkids. I ordered them all and they will be heading off to them today. A huge thank you to Carole and her Children’s Librarian… I mean, librarians are simply the best.
Gratitude number two… receiving my first social security payment! And getting all the extra paperwork dropped off (on Friday) so I can receive my spousal benefit. Thank you to that Allegan County employee who helped me and to the very haggard social security employee who copied all my paperwork on Friday! I am reminded that people who work for the government do so because they want to help others… you both are shining examples of exactly what being a public servant means!
Gratitude number three… finding the perfect person to install a clothes line in my backyard! Last week the guy came to trim out bushes and I asked him if he knew anyone who could do such a task. He let me know that he would be thrilled to do that for me and for a very reasonable price! We walked off dimensions and if the rain lets up this week he will get it installed! Thank you, Phil for solving this for me!
Gratitude number four… a huge thanks to all the people who showed up on Saturday all across this nation! You are all what democracy looks like!
Happy Monday, everyone! See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Nov 25, 2022 | General, In This Moment
Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude. ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
The day after Thanksgiving should be an easy day to be grateful, right? We have full bellies, leftovers, and…if we are lucky…a slice of pie for breakfast!
So where does one go from here…the last day of Kym’s Gratitude Week.
In years past, I have jotted down a Gratitude List of five or so things each day in a “Gratitude Journal.” But after awhile, this felt trite to me… so much of the sameness written down, but did that really help me focus on being grateful? So I stopped writing in my gratitude journal and noted that stopping made no difference in how I felt or my attitude.
And so I began to change how I thought about having a grateful heart. Instead of writing things down, I kept my eyes and ears open for things that might cross my path that sparked gratitude. Those things came easier it seemed.
- A particularly cheerful bird song.
- The palest hint of a sunrise or a sunset.
- Hearing the school age children full of excitement to tell their mom about their day.
- The hushed silence that a late autumn morning brings.
- Reading a poem that moves me in a new or profound way.
Great things to be grateful for, but still… it seemed lacking to me. But one thing that Carolyn blogged recently has been rattling around my brain.
“Before bed, I jotted 3 things I was grateful for and 3 things I did for someone else that day.”
I have not stopped thinking about this: “3 things I did for someone else that day.”
Hard truths are never easy to share… but I don’t often do things for someone else.
Now, I am not including Steve, my kids, or my grandkids here… those are the people it is easy to do things for. The people you are happy to help with a cheerful, loving heart. Nor am I counting the places I make donations to… is making a donation a good thing? Absolutely! But it is something that is, for me, easy to do!
But what am I physically doing for the someone else’s that I have no connection with? The answer is a whole lot of not very much.
So where I hope to take Gratitude Week is to look for the someone else’s. I am going to go beyond simply keeping my eyes and ears open. I want to try and go deeper, to stretch my gratitude boundaries – to find the parts that “carry the most weight” (to quote Carolyn again) in the things I do for others.
And there you have it… my take on how to close out Gratitude Week.
I hope that your Friday is full of all the things you love! See you all back here on Monday with my Word update!
by Kat | Nov 24, 2022 | General, In This Moment
Abundance:
noun
the situation in which there is more than enough of something
an amount that is more than enough
Abundance is something I have been thinking about frequently this year, it popped up many times as I worked through my word – full.
And the one thing I discovered this year was that the having all the things, being full, or overflowing… was not always the end goal. In fact, it is not a goal at all. So I spent this year paring down the abundance of things I have trying to get to the point of having just enough. Not more than enough… just enough.
And let me tell you, it is a struggle!
So today I am focusing on three things that I noticed recently…
- The news loves to tell us all that there are “supply chain” issues, yet I found an abundance of choices to fill my Thanksgiving table with more than enough. Did I have to skip things on my list? Yes, but they are not necessary… at all. We won’t go hungry today or this week! And yes, there will be leftovers!
- All the online retailers have now started Black Friday well before Black Friday. That includes online fabric stores, all the online yarny things, and yes… even nail polish. This has meant that I began unsubscribing from a plethora of things in early November! That niggling fear of missing out on “that next thing” really is one of my largest factors for adding to the abundance of things in my house.
- We cut the cable cord some years ago, but recently we have been discussing how we replaced cable with an abundance of streaming services. The New Year will see a vast paring down of those services… we have placed them all on a sheet and plan to discuss who stays and who goes in the coming weeks.
So you might be wondering at this point… where’s the gratitude? Me too! Ha!
I am grateful to have choices, to have the means to even contemplate abundance, and… perhaps most importantly… the ability to share, give, and do for others who might not have all the choices and abundance we do.
Now I am going to watch a video that Kym shared yesterday! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
