Gratitude

Good Wednesday dear readers. Hope all are enjoying the decent spring weather. I did manage to go for two short walks today, one with just me and the mp3 player and the other with Amy and the hounds. It was nice to get out of the house and get a little exercise but I'm paying the price now with a very stiff and spasming back. Amy and I enjoyed a little peace and quiet this late afternoon on the back deck as well. Gets me jonesing for cookouts (barbecues for some folks) and bonfires with friends. I'm thinking the backyard could use a horseshoe pit this summer. We will add that to the list of 347 other things I'd do if I had the time, energy and money all at once.

Anyway I was thinking that for today's blog I would share a little gratitude list with my friends. I subscribe to a certain way of life that sometimes suggests we list things we are grateful for to help us on those days that might be a tad sub par emotionally. Take it of leave it for it is what it is. I don't normally put the things I'm thankful for down on paper. More frequently I speak them out loud in an abbreviated list. Today this writer is going to try something a little different and actually take the time to write it out. Feel free to add comments at the end of this blog my friends on things that make you feel grateful.

1. I'm grateful to be alive and sober for the 1,402 day in a row.

2. I'm extremely thankful for my loving children, who are not only healthy, smart and active, but also the joy of my existance. It is an honor, a blessing and a privilege for this guy to be their Dad.

3. I'm grateful to have a loving and beautiful woman in my life, who exhibits extreme amounts of patience and tolerance for my shenanigans and overall hooliganism. She is very kind, caring and loyal and has done nothing but love me unconditionally. I love her.

4. I'm grateful that I've been allowed the honor of being able to build loving relationships with my siblings and my Mother. It is a privilege to be a member of a fairly tough and unconditionally loving family.

5. I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to become a son my Dad could take a measure of pride in and that I had the opportunity to be in the room with him when he left this earthly world. He was certainly one of the most loving Dad's God ever placed on this Earth. The last few years of his life were a gift to myself and to my family and I'm honored to have been his son and to have had the opportunity to learn from his simple wisdom. He will always be in my eyes the epitome of unselfishness.

6. I'm so very grateful to have a multitude of friends who support and love me no matter what I go through in life. It has been a long time since I have had to go through anything in life, good or bad, alone. It is a true blessing to be so loved by so many.

7. I am truly grateful to have a beautiful home to live in, more food to eat than I need, more clothes to wear than I have days to wear them, most of the things I want and all of the things I need to enjoy this wonderful life I've been blessed to have. There are people that have more money than I do, who have bigger houses and fancier vehicles, but there is no one, anywhere on Earth, that is more richly blessed with happiness than I.

8. I am not only grateful but also extremely proud to live in the best damn country in the world. It is a true blessing to be an American.

9. I am grateful that Amy and I have two wonderful hounds of our own and have the means to foster another until he finds his forever home. On dark gloomy dreary days there is no therapy like hound therapy.

10. I am grateful to be in generally good health and to have the ability to do many of the things I enjoy doing in life.

11. I am grateful there are places like The Open Door in this world. The Open Door is a transitional housing facility for men in recovery. I lived there for 13 wonderful months and am certainly a better man for having had that opportunity.

12. I am grateful to live in Toledo, OH a city that has so many wonderful resources to offer its citizens. I love the Toledo Zoo, Fifth Third Field, the beautiful metro parks, the beautiful Maumee river, the wonderful libraries and countless other amenities afforded us Toledoans.

13. I am thankful to have the luxury to relax with a cup of coffee whenever I choose to do so. A hot cup of good coffee and fellowship with good friends are often high points in my day.

14. I am grateful to be a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, an Ohio State Football fan and a Chicago Bears Football fan. Following these sporting franchises have afforded me many wonderful memories throughout my life and I look forward to them helping me make many more.

15. I am grateful to have a host of mentors who are always there to help guide me through life's twists and turns. Without these men and women I would not be the man I am today.

16. I am truly thankful to have the gift of laughter in my daily life. Without laughter there would be no reason to live.

17. I am grateful the late great Robert B. Parker wrote so many wonderful novels in his lifetime.

18. I am grateful my parents instilled in me a love of reading.

19. I am grateful to have discovered a plethora of wonderful music in my lifetime. Music is a gift that gives over and over again. It is truly one of the great arts. A life without music would be a dull life indeed.

20. I am grateful to have hundreds of opportunities that lie ahead of me. Opportunities for furthering my education, for changing (in my case finding!) a career and opportunities for new adventures in life.

21. I am blessed to have found a loving Higher Power of my understanding who has never stopped at second chances but has afforded me thousands of chances to find my way to happiness.

22. I am grateful to have the pleasure of experiencing Cheese Cake and its many therapeutic values.

23. I am grateful to live in a region that affords many more sunny and warm days than cold and frigid ones.

24. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read and learn about people like Abraham Lincoln, Martin L. King Jr., Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and the countless other American Heroes who have paved a better life for you and I.

25. I have much gratitude for the free public education that I was given and the ability I have to take that with me everywhere I go.

26. I am grateful that someone invented shaving gel which is so much better than shaving cream.

27. I am blessed to have the "problem" of having so many friends and fun events to attend that I often don't have time for them all. For example, Amy and I were invited to four different places for the Super Bowl. We made two of those parties and literally flipped a quarter at half-time to decide what the second one to hit would be. Once again it is a divine blessing to be so thoroughly loved by so many.

28. I am grateful that out of the hundreds of thousands of people who have suffered from the disease of addiction, I am one of the few who has been granted the chance to recover from it.

29. I'm grateful to have been granted a second chance in life. And a third and a fourth and a 77Th and so forth.

30. I'm grateful that there might possibly be one or two of you still reading this rambling, repetitive list.

31. I am grateful that someone invented Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

32. I'm so very grateful to be blessed with enough material things in life that I have the pleasure of sharing some of these resources with others.

33. I'm grateful to have been taught not to regret my past, nor to shut the door on it. I've had the pleasure of seeing my experience benefit others.

I could go on and on for quite a while longer my friends. This list has already been long enough and thorough enough to help me realize that I'm so richly blessed. I truly have so many things to be grateful for and many reasons to smile each day. I am reminded that gratitude truly is an action and not just merely things we can list. I assure you dear readers that my actions today, tomorrow and should I be granted the opportunity to live next week, will exhibit just how gracious I am.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with today's blog. If anything I hope that I have inspired at least one person, somewhere, to realize the simple pleasures that we are granted each day.

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." -Denis Waitley- World renowned keynote speaker and productivity consultant.

My wish for you today my dear friends is that you learn to find happiness in whatever state you are in today. If no one has told you today that you are loved, allow me to be the first. I love you. You are worthy of happiness. Take that happiness and share it with someone else and help make this world a better one to live in.

Peace.