Day 11: Veterans Day

Today, I am so thankful for the military veterans who have sacrificed so much for the freedom's I enjoy daily, and to their family.  When I think of the military, I feel a sense of patriotism that is hard to describe.  On Friday, at Cecily's school, they had a Veteran's Day celebration and veteran's from WWII and on where present.  Cecily said that a few of the WWII veteran's cried during the performance and that it really touched her and made her want to cry.  I'm so glad to live in this country, even with it's problems, it is still the best place on earth to live, and I will always be grateful for the men and women who have and continue to sacrifice daily to keep it that way!

Day 10

I missed this yesterday, but I am grateful for the fact that I know how to budget and live within a budget.  I am thankful that the Lord has taught my family the power of self reliance.  This has not always been easy for me, but it truly is a blessing.  I remember at one point in my life, wanting fancier and new cars and houses, clothes, vacations etc., but to have a car that runs and gets us to where we need it to take us AND have it payed for means so much more.  The other day, the girls saw a fancy Mercedes and they said, "WOW, don't you wish we had a car like that?", and it felt so good to honestly say, "Nope, I'm happy with what I have.  That car does the same thing that our car does. It gets us from point A to point B".  Mike and I have always tried to live a life that we pay as we go....aside from our house (which if I could pay it off today, I would).  I'm thankful we have learned that it is more important to save for rainy days than to spend all of our money having fun (not that we have not been able to have fun on the way, but we don't have fun, if we can't pay the bills). Rainy days have come our way, and will continue to come, I'm sure, but to not have to lay awake at night wondering if we can pay our bills is a HUGE blessing.  I give ALL thanks for this blessing to a loving Father in Heaven.  I know that paying tithing is a part of this blessing and I have a huge testimony of that.   

A month of GRATITUDE and THANKSGIVING

In the past General Conference address, President Monson counseled us all that we would find more joy in life if we could find gratitude in even the smallest blessings (he didn't say it quite like that, but that is how I remember it...so maybe that is what I was suppose to get from it).

Well, a few of my friends on FB started 30 Days of Thanksgiving with each day having them post something they are thankful for.  When I saw this, I thought about Pres. Monson's talk and  how I often overlook the blessings present in my life each day and really wanted to start recognizing them.  I also thought it taking something like 25 days to form a habit (I could be off on the days, but hey November has 30, so I think I'm covered).  Wouldn't it be AWESOME to form a  habit of gratitude and thanksgiving?  I began thinking of all the joy that could come into my life from doing so, am hoping this will help me get there.

I also wanted to begin with recognizing things that are not always obvious b/c it's easy to recognize the things right there, but I wanted to look at both big and small things or small things that really could be counted as big in the right perspective.  Ya know what I mean?  So, I started posting my days of  thankfulness on FB, but I decided to take a hiatus from there...and then thought that I could continue this on my BLOG!  So here, I am! 

I'll give a short run down on the first 8 days and then end with what I'm thankful for on day 9

Day 1- I am thankful for a washer and dryer
Day 2- Early morning seminary
Day 3-A healthy body
Day 4-The Sabbath Day and the opportunity that it affords me to renew my baptismal covenants by partaking of the sacrament.
Day 5-Knowledge that the Lord is involved in the details of my life.  That He has a plan for me.  One of my FB friends posted..."Your life may not be the way you intended it to be, but that does not mean it is not how God intended it to be".  I loved that and so true.
Day 6-Thankful for the opportunity to exercise my right to vote and for all the men and women who fought and continue to fight for that right.
Day 7-For the prompting and guidance of the Holy Ghost and that I can still recognize Him and have him guide me to know when to make changes in my life.
Day 8-FRIENDSHIP

So what am I thankful for on day 9? 
I've started to realize that joy is coming into my life with this b/c once I started to stop and recognize what all I have to be grateful for, it is hard to just chose ONE thing each day!  But today, I am thankful that we have a prophet on earth, President Thomas S. Monson.  I know he leads and guides Heavenly Father's church, and gives guidance not only to the world, but to me and my family.   While listening to the conference talks as I worked out today, I was reminded of something President Monson said in April of 2009, and boy did it give me comfort today, Nov 9 of 2012, and I will leave it with you:

"Be of good cheer.  The future is as BRIGHT as YOUR FAITH!" 

This came from such a great talk on having hope and faith in times of trouble.  Listen to it, or read it. Either way, I promise if you do, you will be on your way to a journey of GRATITUDE and THANKSGIVING.
Here it is: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/be-of-good-cheer?lang=eng#

Is it just me...

or does anyone else find it odd that in the technological world when you are prompted to verify that you are a real poster and the website gives you a bunch of letters and numbers to type in before you can do whatever it is you want to do, they ALWAYS seem to make those bunch of numbers and letter pretty impossible to read? 

Just now, I was trying to post a comment and up pops the window prompter asking me to type the words in to verify.  I can barely read it and it says something like, "If you can't read this click here for a new batch", and the second batch of numbers and letters are even worse.  CRAZY!!

So my plea to whoever (or whomever....I've never understood that either. lol) does this, please STOP!  You are hurting my head and eyes. It's like you want me to fail.  I hate failure.  This is suppose to check to see if a real person is on the other end not as to whether or not I can decipher your message!  I'm not a spy!
So for me, I would appreciate when a prompt comes up, for it to look like this:

123 EASY AS CAN BE!

or better yet:

U R KOOL #1

Yeah, I like that much better.

Not some twisted h, shadowed by an sideways E.

Thank you!