Gratitude Challenge 2017

If you've been playing along with Positively Present's 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge, these prompts won't be news to you, and if you've visited me on Instagram, my posts won't be new news, either. However if neither apply, or if you're like me and you like a little consolidation and closure, here it is... my 30 Days of Gratitude, all at once:

1: Beauty

2: Happiness

3: Nature

4: Inspiration

5&6: Amusement and Kindness

7: Comfort

8:Self-love

9: Feeling

10: Nourishment

11: Music

12: Freedom

13: Optimism

14: Challenges

15: Health

16: Creativity

17: Memories

18: Home

19: Friendship

20: Innovation

21: Love

22: Awareness

23: Family

24: Solitude

25 & 26: Generosity and Wonder

27: Meaning

28: Peace

29: Knowledge

30: Growth

See past years' challenges: 2013, 2014, 2015 (2016 I participated on Instagram only)

A Mysterious Visitor

October went out with bluster and chill, and November has arrived with late-summertime temps and humidity. 90 degrees by tomorrow? Ugh.

But with these warmer temps came a little visiting water bird (we're not sure exactly what it is), bringing a little mystique with it's migratory pause. Our short-lived freeze has started turning everything the browns, tans, and muted tones we'd expect to see in mid-Fall, and even though it feels like early September (and will for the next week at least), there's still some autumnal magic to be found out there after all!

With this November magic comes a craving to find a way to express a little gratitude for all that special everyday stuff (for me, anyway), and so in keeping with tradition I'll be playing along with Positively Present's Gratitude Challenge again this year. It's the perfect little daily ritual for this month of thanksgiving.

One photo every day (hopefully), posted over on my Instagram account. If you're playing along, too, feel free to link up and join me in welcoming November!

10 Things

A few things on this gray and muggy Thursday:

1.Spring garden planning is in full swing right now, thanks to a weekend of quick and decisive destruction (bye-bye giant weeds, hello blank slate garden plot!). I'm being heavily influenced by this book, if anyone's interested.

2.We finally connected with someone to come cut hay in our field and take on the hay lease. It has made for much easier walking (now that the grass is short) and much fun on the bale left behind for us...

3. Is anyone participating in Positively Present's 30 Days of Gratitude this month? I'd love to see what you come up with! I've decided to follow the rules this year (first time evah) and am posting daily via my Instagram account. Come play along! (See my all-at-once-style previous challenges here: 2015, 2014, 2013)

4. My girl and I have started planning treats to bring to our family Thanksgiving meals, and this year I've decided to pass on to her my vintage Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book. It's so fun to see which recipes she's drawn to, and remember which ones were my favorites. I can't wait to see what she decides to make this year! (We have a right of passage in our family- you have to be six and able to read before you get to have your own recipe book; Bubba still helps but he doesn't get to have his own books and make his own plans until next year)

5. We've started experimenting with our beeswax and a lot of our inspiration has come from this helpful blog. Our most successful concoctions will become gifts this upcoming holiday.

6. I'm a bit obsessed with apples at the moment- which I don't feel bad about at all because they're in season and everywhere and cheap!- and am planning some apple pie making soon... but am also eyeballing this recipe and thinking I might just have to go back to the store for more. Oh how I look forward to when our own apple trees are big enough to produce apples!

7. My girl lost another tooth this week, and has started asking what will happen if she looses all her teeth all at once before the permanent teeth have a chance to grow back in (she forgets she has quite a few permanent teeth already). She has no interest in the tooth fairy and insists on storing her teeth for herself. I'm thinking she might need a little treasure box in her stocking for those she doesn't loose between now and then.

8. I've been scouring the interwebs for recipes using honey... both beekeeping clubs I belong to will be holding potluck meetings in December to celebrate the holidays, and I would love to bring something honey-centric. I have a few recipes bookmarked, but the search continues. Any recommendations?

9. As I have been writing this post, I've been hearing the weirdest scraping, dragging, whistling sound. It kinda sounded like it was coming from outside, but I just now realized: I've been hearing my cat snore. So there's that going on, too.

10. We had a "cold" front blow through last night which brought some much-needed rain but didn't cool things down much... I'm dying for temps that don't require the air conditioner so I can dive in to this hot drinks list and start working my way through it!

And that's about all on this dull Thursday morning! Now I'm off for more coffee and some pie makin'!

30 Days of Gratitude 2015

I'm such a rule-breaker (not really, but this time it's true). While everyone else participating in the 30-Day Gratitude Project was daily posting their photos on Instagram and whatnot, I was keeping them to myself, to share all at once at the end of the month.

So here we go- all 30 of my moments of gratitude this month.

1: Home.

2: Inspiration.

3: Love.

4: Color. I think a picture of the sky has been my 'color' shot almost every year for this challenge, but I can't help myself.

5: Happiness.

6: Words.

7: Keepsake.

8: Nature.

9: Laughter.

10: Music.

11: Gift.

12: Wisdom. This is the shelf in my personal library that I reference the most frequently.

13: Art.

14: Routine.

15: Clothing. So grateful they dress themselves now!

16: New. 

17: Weather.

18: Food. Chickens who provide us with so much, eating pumpkin seeds.

19: Beauty.

20: Friendship.

21: Technology.

22: Time. So grateful my girl is learning to tell time at school!

23: Scent.

24: Knowledge.

25: Comfort. My little thumb-sucker with is precious "Fresh Blanket."

26: Family

27: Luxury.

28: Work. I am so grateful for kids who willingly do chores!

29: Creativity. Aaaaarrrr-drey the Pirate in her box pirate ship.

30: Self-Love. It's cliche, but I rarely shop for myself, and it feels a little like love when I do get out... alone... for just me.

This month was chaotic at best, and just like in the regular day-to-day that isn't leading up to a holiday, I found it hard to stop and find something I was grateful for to focus on for every. single. prompt. Also there were some days when it seemed like nothing was photogenic enough to make the cut... so I skipped a day here and there and doubled up on other days.

However, I still enjoyed this "challenge," and found myself able to appreciate things that might not have gotten a second glance- like the chalk art in the driveway- or things that are so appreciated and used that they're taken for granted- like my coffee maker.

Also, it's always fun to look back at a month and have a photo for every day that flew by, and I think that's what I like best about this project. The saving of the days that speed by faster than usual when we enter into these holidays.

So long November, thanks for leaving me with a little somethin' to remember you by.