Work Home and Family - Making My House a Home
This was the Valentine's Day gift I made for my children. The blue/green chain is for Buddy and the pink/purple chain is for Missy. Each link is a printout of my "Gratefulness Journal" for that person. Then I made them into a chain with heart-shaped links. Yes, all 365 days of them from 2010 into a chain for each person for Valentine's Day 2011. I have a journal for John too and made a chain for him too - a red/orange one. And I hung them around the house, making the whole place feel festive!
Each day I write down one thing I am grateful for with each member of my family.
This goes a long way to keeping my attitude the right attitude.
I just spent a weekend with a group of women who, for the most part (like any of us) are wonderful, caring, loving women. They spent the entire weekend complaining about their spouses and kids. Part of it, I'm sure, is just having a sympathetic ear who understands the day-to-day frustration of picking up after others, re-cleaning thing after thing, and the like. I did make me wonder how much they did it at home - it was that automatic.
It's really hard to be cranky at people when you're grateful.
And thus my "Gratefulness Journal". Today's entries in my journals look like this:
Buddy: "I'm grateful that Buddy like to 'spike' his hair - he looks so cute with it that way!"
Missy: "I'm grateful that we were able to get a doctor's appointment for Missy today." (She has what we think is a bladder infection).
John: "I'm so grateful for all John has done for me and continues to do for me on a daily basis. I'm so blessed to be his wife!" (He took care of several things that normally aren't his responsibility this week so that I could deal with yet another relative who was admitted to the hospital in critical condition this week).
Sometimes it's really hard to find something to be grateful for. Missy, for example, has been cranky and fussy and just plain a bit of a pain to be around the last few days. Last night she went to the bathroom about two dozen times in two hours and told us it hurt to urinate. Now I know why she's been so cranky. And yes, I'm grateful we know why. I'm even more grateful to have good medical care available to take care of the bladder infection.
Being grateful makes life so much easier. And it makes my house a home.
If I'm grateful, it's much easier to keep my house clean, my family taken care of and my things in good repair.
Keeping my gratefulness journals take less than 5 minutes per day.
But they make so much of a difference.
What do you do to make your house a home? I'd love to hear!
