I'm not very good at this. Will get better.

I need to get better.  Writing clears my mind and this gratitude thing is good for the soul.  When I get busy, it is just the last thing I think about.  Like the dishes or laundry.

I need to focus on something positive right now since I made the mistake at reading simple minded people's response to a news article.  Are people really that ignorant? 

Wait, that is the wrong attitude for this post, and the wrong blog.  I have another blog to write out peoples idiotic behavior and thoughts.

This is about me, and my thoughts and my being grateful. So today, what am I grateful for?

Looking out the window and seeing the sun in my backyard with the trees and leaves playing their light dances on the grass.  I know that sound cheesy, but sitting her looking out the window and hearing the birds is really peaceful.  And that is my little chunk of the world.  And I love it. I know I was already grateful for my deck, which is part of the backyard, but sitting inside at the table, I can look out the windows and enjoy it in air-conditioned comfort and it gives another thing to be grateful for.

I am grateful for church camp. It is where I dropped my daughter off yesterday.  It is where she was baptized a few years ago.  It is where she meets up with good friends every summer and lives five and a half days with no cell phone, growing closer to God and learning more about Jesus, and having the time of her life.  I wish I had had a church camp experience like that.  I had a few church trips, and they rank right up there, but to have a place that is on the lake and only about four miles from home but feels a million miles away - where she can go back as an adult and send her own kids to in future years.  That is something special.  I am truly grateful for her church camp.

Aldi's grocery store.  Yep, maybe another weird thing to be grateful for but I appreciate it so much.  It offers so many good things.  You can get in and out of there quickly because it is about a quarter of the size of a regular grocery store.  And their food...yum.  Many people have a bit of a snobbish idea that they prefer to spend more and get better quality food.  I think in the last twenty years the food quality and variety has really increased.  But really, if you can tell the difference in Aldi's cream cheese and your favorite then you're better than me.  Sure, some thing may be different.  Take cereal for example.  If you are hooked on a national brand, then then store brand may not do it for you.  But we are not big cereal eaters so for us it makes no difference.  I can usually get 90-95% of my grocery list done at Aldi's and the last few specialty items (last week it was fresh basil and fresh ginger) at the larger, more expensive grocery store.  I do buy national brand spaghetti sauce and mac n cheese - and if I think hard, a few other things but I love the convenience and the prices (and no coupons) at Aldi's and am grateful we have one close to home.