Thankful Me

It's Thursday, which means it's time to join the Six Sentence Stories link-up. This week's prompt: Up. If one were to be believe the "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION," scream of the real estate listing, this house might be the one--the one that had not only the million-dollar views without that hefty price tag, but also no backyard neighbors, and unobstructed access to mountain hiking trails. Determining whether or not the house lived up to its reputation required, of course, an in-person visit, and as the husband and wife drove to the address, they took note of the attractive houses in the neighborhood.  The "LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION" house greeted them with its tall, weedy lawn and overgrown shrubbery, but they only had eyes for the fact it had  landscaping--including fruit trees, maples, pines, and beloved quaking aspen. As they climbed up the front steps, the joy of a wrap-around porch overshadowed the disappointment of a broken door bell. 

Earlier this year, we decided to move ourselves from a large home in California to a smaller home in Utah. Thus began what will be known as The Great De-Cluttering of 2017 . By nature, I am a sentimental saver. Preparing for this move forced me to examine all of our belongings and make some tough decisions. Along the way, I discovered some truths that helped me in my efforts.  1. Letting go of an item is not the same as letting go of a person.  2. Letting go of a gift that commemorated an important event does not cause the event to never have happened.  3. Splitting a set is OK. Really. I use dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls, but I don't have a need for mugs, saucers, nor bread plates. Why waste precious cupboard space on items I don't use? I kept what I use and donated the rest.  4. Acknowledge that needs change. I used to bake 6 loaves of bread at a time, weekly. Now I seldom bake bread, and when I do, I bake at most 2 loaves. I kept 2 pans, and got rid of t

Fall arrived a couple days ago, and winter arrived today. John was out of town this weekend. When I turned the thermostat from "cool" to "heat" yesterday, the furnace fired up for a few minutes, then stopped. The inside temperature was 59 degrees this morning, which was better than the 40 it was outside.  Several situations have me heated up, though. I could choose to focus on them, or I could look back over this week and remember the things for which I am truly thankful. I'm taking the grateful route, knowing that it will make me feel better, and will allow me to see the situations in their true light--which is that they are annoyances, but nothing of long-term importance. 1. I am thankful for the cool weather and changing seasons. Though I'm not ready for snow here yet, I do enjoy seeing it on the mountains.  Photo: The snowy peaks of Y mountain (it has a white Y for BYU painted on it) stand in contrast to the still-green leaves of the trees in my

It's been a while since I've participated in the Six Sentence Story hop hosted by Ivy. I guess you could say I've dropped the ball  plate. 🙂 "How do they make it look so easy?" The quickly spinning plates balanced so perfectly on the poles the Chinese women acrobats held in their hands. As she watched them, mesmerized  by the hypnotic movement of the plates, she thought she saw words on each ceramic disc: family, job, chores, exercise, mental health, home projects, budget, . . . . Her mind spun as frantically as the plates.  Returning home from the performance, determined to learn their secret, her hasty internet search informed her that the plates were not regular dinnerware, but special pieces with places for the poles to attach. Comparative guilt relieved, she settled back into the rhythm of her life: some plates spun nicely for a time, others fell and needed to be picked up again.  

This week, I've been reminded of the power of "one."  Photo: A young woman walks down a cobblestone street with her arm around a girl. The quote, by Anne C. Pingree, reads: "We can alter the face of the earth one family and one home at a time through charity, our small and simple acts of pure love."  Source After viewing a particularly scary house (quite obviously the dwelling of a serious hoarder), our realtor asked, "So, is this 'the one'?" No, it isn't the right house for us, but we are enjoying the search for a home to purchase. I'm thankful (1) for our realtor's patience with us, as we request to see very diverse properties, and I'm thankful (2) that both John and I realize that homes are much more than the walls that make up a house. Yesterday afternoon, John and I had the privilege of attending an open house for a young couple who recently married. The bride had been best friends with our son when they were presc

I refuse to let the weekend slip by again without a Ten Things of Thankful post, so I'm getting a jump on it (and including items from the past two weeks.)  Last week, we drove back to California (again). Months before we had decided to move to Utah, we had signed up to run at Disneyland over Labor Day weekend. We left here on Wednesday night, stopped at Mesquite, Nevada to sleep, then drove the rest of the way to Anaheim on Thursday morning. 1. I'm thankful for safety in travel. We drove through some pretty intense, though brief, rain storms in southern Utah. We had no problems, nor did anyone else that we saw.  2. I'm thankful for online discount sites. Thanks to Ebates and Expedia, our stay at the Rising Star Sports Ranch Resort in Mesquite was super affordable. (If you ever find yourself in Mesquite, and want to avoid the casino crowd, I'd recommend Rising Star. It was new, clean, and smoke-free.) Once in Anaheim, we were shocked at how uncrowded the Disney