11/21/17- Counting My Blessings

Last year a friend started a #GratitudeProject around the holidays, and she brought back the project for this year. The idea of the project is that a "purposeful study of gratitude, thankfulness, and mindfulness has many benefits, not the least of which is, it makes you a happier person!" So for 14 days, my friends leads a group of us in practicing gratitude, thankfulness, and mindfulness.  

Each day has a new exercise, and today's exercise was to count your blessings.  Here's the description of the exercise: 

Count your blessings.  Pick a time today and consider sustaining this every week where you sit down and write about your blessings-- reflection on what went right or what you are grateful for.  Sometimes it helps to pick a number-- such as three to five things-- that you will identify each week.  How many will you identify today? As you write, be specific and think about the sensations you felt when something good happened to you.

I thought since I have a weekly blog post to do, Thanksgiving is around the corner, and I want to participate in today's #GratitudeProject, why not make my blog post about counting my blessings? I am not sure that I'll think of every blessing I have, but here are the blessings that are always in my mind and heart:

1) My son (love you Jack Jack!)
2) My husband (💓)
3) My friends (😊)
4) My extended family (shout out to my nephews Brady, Austin, Connor, and Parker and godson Colton!)
5) My pets
6) My education
7) My house (a roof over my head)
8) My eyesight (I may have RA, but so far, I haven't had to wear glasses)
9) Being born in the US
10) Science and the wonderment of scientific discovery
11) All the different options available for food and the ability to afford all the different options (can't eat gluten, no problem here in the States!)
12) Washing machines and dish washers (so thankful to not have to walk down to the river and do it all by hand)
13) Books
14) Shoes (not sure my delicate feet could handle walking around barefoot on the hot Phoenix sidewalks)
15) Writing
16) Funny GIFs and Memes (sometimes the Internet is shark, but sometimes it makes me laugh and brings cheer)
17) Starbucks and husband always "refilling" the Starbucks card
18) My car/having reliable transportation
19) A job that helps saves lives in some small part
20) Netflix

What are your blessings? Can you count at least a handful of blessings? Please feel free to share in the comments, and I hope most of your blessings will be gathered around you at your Thanksgiving fest. Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble, gobble, gobble!