Tag Archives: thanks

Touching Base….

Posted on by jatwood4

Hi to everyone!

I started this post complaining about the food, but that is a lower priority now.

Here I wrote a long, bitchy paragraph about food without salt, but I erased it after talking with my  sister, M.  My safety and my health were the first reasons to think about assisted living, along with isolation,  Those are top priorities,  and I have trouble sometimes remembering them

I decided to concentrate on going home, and not into assisted living — the food here sucks, mostly, and they won’t give a tiny packet of salt, even only once a day.  Breakfast is okay, I guess, (I eliminated eggs all together.)  From there on, none!  I can’t eat much of it, and salt substitute is awful.  On the good side, raw carrots are okay.  Any suggestion would be wonderful, please.

More, but really I wanted to say, “Thank you,” for cards and comments and visits; those mean so much to me.  I’m often too tired to respond, but please remember I love you all, and each contact is so pleasant, I smile for the rest of the day.  Thanks so much!

Please, continue your kind patience with me.  I hope to be feeling better soon, and I am working hard to do that.  My love and greetings to all of you, with hugs for all.

Saturday Gratitude Post — February 22, 2014

Posted on by jatwood4

I am so grateful, today.  I stopped this morning to think about the blessings I enjoy, and how I came to understand them so late in my life.  I am surrounded by family and friends who love me, and who want to see me succeed.  That is very gratifying.  I used to believe the people I knew, who wished me well, also had expectations I would never be able to meet.  Time and circumstance collaborate to teach me that love, friendship, encouragement, and even constructive criticism  are all gifts, from others to me.  I had best learn from them and appreciate their inherent value.

I am thankful for the many people who choose to receive and to read my writing.  Each person reading this post can take some credit for my continuing blogging successes, and if I could, I would love to thank each of you personally for your gifts of support, argument, questioning and seeking deeper knowledge.  I know the exchange between us, a function of this blogging relationship, strengthens me, and pushes me toward more in-depth writing, as well as deeper self-understanding.  Thank you, each of you, for heaping these blessings on me.

I saw my diabetes nurse-practitioner this week, and I believe we are finally dialing in my insulin levels.  This is the first time in decades that I am maintaining a solid <180 blood glucose.  I am more than happy to admit that small adjustments to my insulin doses make huge differences in not only my physical health, but also in my sense of self-confidence and self-worth.  I am very happy to be alive and interested and interacting with the world around me.

I could go on for days and still not list all the truly positive aspects of my life.  And even though I don’t mention everything for which I am thankful, I dwell now in a more solid sense of appreciation for the world around me, and for my life.  I know I say this every week, but truly, I am a lucky woman, and I live with  sincere thanks for my every moment on our lovely world.

Saturday Gratitude Post — 02/15/2014

Posted on by jatwood4

It’s Saturday evening, here in Maine, and we are supposed to get our second significant snowstorm in as many days.  I must begin this post with great thanks that all the people I know and love, who are traveling today, have so far arrived safely, and I hope the same for all travelers.

Speaking of traveling, my best friend and big sis, S., had a ticket to fly up for my Dad’s surprise 80th birthday, but the airline cancelled her flight a couple of days in advance.  We all wish you could have been with us, S., and Dad knows what happened with the ticket.  He was really happy you were planning to attend.  Maybe for his 85th!  He looks terrific and was really surprised when he arrived — not always an easy surprise to pull off.

I did see some of my sisters, and a couple of cousins, whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time.  When my cousin M., and his wife K., are around, we laugh like we’re out of control.  Today was no different.  I also rode to the party with my sister DB, and home with M., so we all got a chance to catch up.  Lots of fun.

Mom received some good news this week — her right hand is growing more numb by the day.  Now she has seen a specialist, and they are going forward with the surgery.  Yay!!  I know this will make life easier for her in so many ways.  I am really thankful that you hooked up with such a good specialist, Mom.

I am, as always, grateful for my life, my health, my lovely little home, my family, and all of the good people with whom I surround myself.  I feel well, and I’m making a point to enjoy every minute of each day, to the best of my ability.  I completed three paintings this week, but I just painted over the last with white — I want to try the same subject, surf, again from the start.  Most of my readers will understand when I say how much fun this new hobby is — I look at my finished work, and I get all bubbly with joy and satisfaction.  I do need to slow down, though — I can see going through $100s-of-dollars-worth of canvasses in just a few days.

I consider all of my blessings, and I count myself one of the most fortunate women in the world. That makes me smile!

Happily Giving Thanks

Posted on by jatwood4

We live in a bountiful land, loaded to the gills with so many blessings, in the produce of the land, the variety of forests, the differences of the dirt itself, in color and chemical makeup.  We Americans live in comfort, for the most part; comfort that citizens of other parts of the world cannot even imagine.  We have access, and now more access, to health care, to the treatments and drugs we need to survive the many and various bacteria and viruses which are always with us.  We are blessed, and we have much for which to be grateful.

Shortly after I launched this blog, I announced a Gratitude Challenge which, as far as I know, two people have  accepted.  Maybe people don’t know how to say it, or write it.  With a short self-inventory, however, I believe anyone can come up with at least a couple of reasons to give thanks. This very act reminds me of how good my life is, and how often I squander it, when I get wrapped up in happenings of the day.  I am reminded, each Saturday, when I write this list, of how fortunate my family has been, (as I am the least healthy of us, and I am working on that.)  I wish I could convey the feeling of peace I find in writing that post every week.  Maybe if I could, more readers would be willing to take a stab at it.

This is not a religious act.  When I give thanks, I offer it up to the stream of consciousness, and to everyone and everything that is made up of a tiny fraction of the material of the universe.  We are the little pieces of the universe which it makes of itself in order to be conscious and to have effect on each other and the world, hopefully for good.  We are stardust, and that makes us and our thanks as luminous as every star in the sky.  On Thanksgiving day, when I see for how much I can be grateful, I say Thanks.  I am a very lucky woman.

Gratitudes — Saturday, 06/29/2013

Posted on by jatwood4

I have many things for which to be grateful today.  At the very top of my list today is my enormous gratitude for the grace and calm I have found in the last couple of years.  I got a good look at that this week,

in 2009, I experienced a full-on battle with my Morgellons syndrome.  This is skin, and some outrageous itching, with only little pairs of dots on my skin showing.  I felt like I had a swarm of bugs under my skin, and I dug my left arm badly. I freaked out — came close to being full-on suicidal, because none of my doctors believed me. Continue reading →

Gratitude Saturday 05/25/2013

Posted on by jatwood4

Good Morning, or whatever time it is where you are.  I’m actually doing this post Saturday AM; I have had a week virtually free of doctors’ appointments, so I don’t feel so slammed.

I have so, so much for which to be grateful today.  I am alive, with food to eat and a roof over my head, (which is a good thing, because we’ve had the Maine version of a monsoon all week.)  I am feeling a lot better emotionally than I have in a long time — I received a lovely comment about yesterday’s craziness at the doctors’, and for a split second I couldn’t recall any troubles there.  I went through it, I ranted about it, and now it’s behind me.  For anyone who has never been depressed, that is an enormous change for me.  If I had a nickel for every time I carried that thing around for weeks, I wouldn’t be living here; I’d be in a house on the beach somewhere warm and lovely.

I owe thanks to so many for that.  First, sister S., who listened all those years, and kept right on loving me, AND introducing me to a new way of looking at the world.  Sue, from the bottom of my heart all the way to the top, thank you for your gift, and for being such a loving friend and sister.  ❤

My mom stayed right beside me, even when she was near crazy with frustration.  I know I’ve made you want to scream, time after time, Mom; thank you so much for hanging in there, and for loving me so much that even after all that, we are friends.  ❤

All of the other members of my family — I’m sorry I have to lump you together, but sisters J., DC, DB, and M., brother M., and Dad and P., for your unbounded optimism.  Also, assorted spouses and significant others, and all my nieces and nephews, and my grand-nephew and incipient grand-niece.  All of  you supported me and loved me, even when we didn’t see each other or speak for months at a time.  Thank you so much.  ❤

Mom just called, and we are going to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in an hour, so I better go get ready.  My love and thanks to my psychologist, and all my friends, especially Darreby, and all of my lovely online friends, who are so faithful, work friends, and anyone I’ve forgotten:  I realize that each and every one of you has had a hand in getting me to where I am.  Thank you all so much.  I am so blessed, and so thankful.  I am a very lucky woman.