Today I am grateful for “Five Things”.   When my kids were little and they would get on a roll of complaining about life, I would listen for a while, and then I would say to them, “OK.  Five Things.”  That was the signal for them to change gears and think about five things they were grateful for in their life.  It was a great way to thwart the negativity and get them thinking in a different direction.   They didn’t always like it (I remember 5 year old Caragh standing with her hands on her hips and declaring very definitively “I HATE FIVE FINGS!” ), but it did help move the day in a different, more grateful direction.

Today is one of those days for me. Maybe it’s the grey weather, or lack of sleep, or hormones, or who knows what.  But I didn’t awaken feeling grateful today.  I awakened feeling a bit like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh.  I awakened wishing I had 12 more hours of sleep in front of me instead of my very full day.  On a day like that, one needs to resort to Five Things!

Five Things doesn’t need to be anything complicated.  Sometimes it simply the fact that I am here and breathing.  Or that I have the ability to move around and live independently.  Often I find the best Five Things are those things we take for granted everyday — our health, our freedom, our independence, our ability to remember and use our minds.   Five Things are the simple things for which we often forget to say “thank you”.  They are the things we assume will just be there each day.  But everything in our lives — absolutely everything — is a gift from God.

So today I am making this a Five Things Friday! (which seems to be a thing in the blogosphere — who knew? 🙂 )  Here are my Five Things:

1) I am much healthier today than I was a year ago

2) I am loved by a great family

3) I have work that feeds my soul

4) I am loved by God as I am (even on these dreary days)

5) I have enough.

Five Simple Things — that put everything else in perspective.

So what are your Five Things?