Thirty Days of Thankful is Here!

                                        

Today is November 1st, so it's time to kick off my 2nd annual "Thirty Days of Thankful" blogging series.  I'm super excited to do it again, being that so much has happened over the course of a year.  I mean, sure there will be some repeats of things that I'm always thankful for, but there will also be some new additions.  It's amazing to think how much I'm really thankful for.

Which brings me to Day One:  I'm thankful for for the fact that it's so easy to pick 30 things to be thankful for, yet so hard to just pick 30 things.

My life hasn't always been that way.  Shoot, a mere decade ago, I would have had a really tough time coming up with thirty things to be thankful for.  I had my health, and I had two amazing kids, but life was HARD!  I woke up every morning worrying about how I was going to pay bills and buy food, keep a roof over our head, and dress my children in clothes that fit them.  Friends were very few and far between, and my job consisted of doing anything that gave me enough money to survive.  

Those days are, thankfully, long gone and I now have a bounty of things to be thankful for.  Writing these posts through the month of November really put my life in to perspective and give me an outlet to share how far I've come and how hard I've worked to be as happy as I am.  But, they also remind me to be humble and thankful for everything I do have.  

I first got the idea for these posts from Facebook. A couple of years ago, I started seeing the daily status updates appear during the month of November and I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and give them a try.  Then, I realized that I had a lot more to say than just sharing what I was thankful for.  As my students will tell you, I'm a "Why" girl.  I need to explain and hear the why for everything.  So, I decided that I needed to write blog posts to explain, in great detail, why I'm so thankful for everything I pick.

I know there are some people out there that loathe these types of posts.  They think they are generic, fake, or just not interesting.  And, it's quite possible I'll lose a few readers during the course of November.  But, this month's theme is a great way to remind me about who I write this blog for:  Me.  I write it, first and foremost, for myself so that I can document my life.  What better way to document my life than sharing thirty things that I'm thankful for?  

I also hope that some people will read my posts and make some connections to things they're thankful for.  I try my best to get a little creative and write about things that some people don't even think about.  Sure, I'm thankful for my kids, my family, my job, etc. (and you'll hear all about them), but there are TONS of other things that I'm thankful for that some people don't think about.  I really try and hone in on stuff that I don't give enough credit to, and is sometimes forgotten.

If you ask someone to list off things that they are thankful for, I'm sure you'll hear all about their family, their friends, their jobs, their homes, their financial stability, and their faith.  But, I wonder how many people stop and think about how thankful they are for the people they work with, their pets, the internet, team weight loss challenges, crocheting, a covered porch, their personality, their favorite beverage, or their stress?  All things that I'm thankful for and things you'll hear about in a lot more detail over the course of the next month.  

Especially the last one, stress.  HA!  How many people do you know that are thankful for that?  But, I am and you'll hear why soon enough.  

The Thirty Days of Thankful posts aren't written so that I can brag about how wonderful my life is.  It is a wonderful life, and I do like sharing that part of it, but it's more about digging deep to uncover some of the aspects of my life that make me who I am and giving thanks for having those opportunities and blessings in my life.  

Everything I am is made up of the small parts that I will share with you over the next thirty days, and then some.  I truly believe I could easily write a whole year's worth of Thankful posts, so that's why it's so hard to just pick thirty.  But, I will, and I hope they'll bring some amusement, deep thinking, and insight to my life... cause I know how that's been missing, right? HA!   

This blog has gone through some major changes in the few years I've been writing, and there's not much I keep to myself.  However, the most recent change has been that I focus a lot of what I say to my job.  My November posts allow me to step back and bring the personal stuff back.  This isn't a teaching blog, it's a general life blog so I sometimes need to take a break from sharing about the goings on of my classroom, and go back to sharing the goings on with my life.  

And I am ready and pumped to do exactly that.

Enjoy this BEAUTIFUL first day of November, and I'll be right back here tomorrow morning kicking off Day Two.