Gratitude List: Long Form

Jeff keeps making fun of me for saying summer is over when it's still about 90 degrees outside, but I know from the putrid condition of the nectarines at the grocery store that summer and its fruits are on the way out. I am sad to see it go, but this fall holds lots of promise and, frankly, presents! The kind you unwrap. Ha! We all know the joke will be on me when the shock of getting lots of lovely gifts so overwhelms and stimulates my system that I have to retire to my bed (that I adore) for a week. Til then, I will act like I can take this all in. We call that, alternatively, Bridal Bravado or Bridal Bullshit. Depends on the hour.

I was at a ridiculous class at the gym today called Mountain Attack. I'll spare you the details, but it was on a bike and there were NO pregnant women around. What about that sounded fun when I was laying in bed planning my day is beyond me. Anyway, long before the other "riders" were done "attacking" the "mountain," I took the tension off my bike and spent a little time thinking about all that I have to be grateful for. Actually, what really happened is that I was thinking about a friend-- no one you know so don't ask-- and I was thinking about what she needed to do to get where she wants to go in her life. That, for the uninitiated, is called "taking someone's inventory," and it's not a Dr. Crimson-nose-sanctioned activity. Anyway, I decided, while intoxicated from the endorphine rush that what my friend should do is make a gratitude list. On and on in my head, I had all these great reasons why she should think on the things that she could be grateful for.

And then, another part of my mind asked the part taking her inventory, "WHO should make a gratitude list?"

I decided I would stop projecting it onto my friend -- (She lives out of state, I swear you don't know her)-- and I would own that I myself could stand to spend a few minutes of the day in gratitude for the many, MANY people and gifts in my life. I am going in reverse order of my top 5 so I can anticipate the juicy build up.

5. Our house. It's going to be a long road to love for me and our new neighborhood, but I really do love our house. Annie always refers to it as our "love nest" and it's really is. I especially want to give a shout out to the kick a** alarms system I have only set off once in 8 weeks; the new family sized refrigerator we just got; the spacious garage; the spacious everything (except for closet space, though we are working on that) and the sturdy hard wood floors.

4. Peeps. I am so grateful for my friends who are carrying me and Jeff right now. It's so fun to have dear friends. Jeff started a project where anyone who visits our house has to sign the garage wall. We have gotten about 10 signatures so far. We look forward to the day that the wall is full of signatures from people we love. Party P is the youngest signatory thus far at 5 months old.

3. Long weekend. I really needed to catch my breath this weekend. It feels like each week that passes from this point will go faster and faster. I anticipate that the growing seed of anxiety in my stomach will grow exponentially, so the downtime we got this weekend makes me very grateful.

2. My healthy body. While my legs gave out before the end of Mountain Attack, I still felt extraordinarily lucky to have a body that most of the time cooperates with me. I caught a glimpse of my profile on the bike in the mirror and thought to myself that my body is strong and beautiful and I am a very lucky woman. That thought was such a revelation-- so unforced and truly sincere. I bet my body has been strong and beautiful for a long, long time, but I have a hard time seeing it. Today, Jeff made a comment that he knows better what my body looks like than I do. He's right. I just can't see it and I can't see it right. Which is fine, because I would rather look at his anyway. It's a gift to have a body that works, one that will, God willing, host babies in the near future, and still carry me all the places I want to go. Like to Anthropologie and OUT of the gym!


1. Here's Mr. Number 1. You will never guess what Jeff is doing in this picture. If you could, that's creepy and I don't want to think about it. But I love what he is doing in this picture and can't imagine doing it in 1 million years. This picture encapsulates for me exactly why Jeff is without a doubt the most competent person I know. Jeff has follow through-- no task is done half a**ed, which is fascinating to watch because half-a** is my specialty. So what's he doing?

Well, we finally bought a comforter to put inside our duvet cover. I was perfectly content to stuff the comforter into the duvet and get into bed (at 9:00 pm on a holiday weekend). Jeff, however, was not remotely comfortable with that. Nope. He went to get 4 safety pins to pin the corners of the comforter so that we'll never have the situation where the comforter gets all bunched up into one corner. Maybe everyone else in the world knows this trick and is willing to execute, but it was a revelation to me! And it's one of the thousands of reasons I love Jeff. That and his butt is super cute!