Gratitude

This time of year is the best! I love the Holidays!

At this point in my life, for me, the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving have a greater focus on the things I am truly grateful for. As a teenager I often thought that happiness would come at significant life benchmarks, when I turned 16 and could drive, when I graduated from high school, got my first full time job doing something I loved, or when I got married or later when I got divorced. Then one day I finally realized that I can find great joy and be grateful in each step of my mortal journey. Some of you may relate and others of you may have figured this out much earlier in life than I did. The key is to figure it out. 
I have had people tell me that they are sorry I do not have a husband or children. Some wonder how I can possibly be happy at my age as a divorced single woman, living alone, and as a member of a church that focuses on family. When I say I am happy and love what I am doing in life, they do not believe me. How could I possibly be happy without all of the things that society claims we need to be happy? 

Well, let me set the record straight. I am extremely grateful for and happy with where I am in life and the things I am blessed to to. I no longer wish time away but savor the moments that make up the moments in my days and my life. I am also very grateful for my past, all of it, because it has brought me to where I am and who I am today.

We each have a part to play in this thing we call life. No two roles are the same and they are rarely what we expect they will be. Even those who on the outside seem to have lives that "go according to plan" will tell you their lives are different than what they expected. A few years before I got divorced, a light came on and I finally realized that joy comes because I choose to find it. Because I choose to follow my Savior. Because joy is so much better than the alternative. Because I choose to take chances that others would not or would like to talk me out of. With that light, additional light came and I started to make life choices that turned on more light which over time opened my mind and heart to options I thought were closed to me or to things I had not thought of or dreamed of before. I am so grateful that, with the Lord's help, I have embraced life wholeheartedly.  But remember, what is right for me, is for me, and not for someone else and visa versa. We each have to discover how to best engage with the role we have been given.

On another note, I am so grateful for the records that have been kept that teach us the history of our ancestors, countries,  evolution of life and culture, and of course our buildings. On Monday I paid a visit to Strawberry Hill House and it was incredible. The house was owned by Horace Walpole who kept meticulous records on the home, the additions, the interior finishes and furniture and the changes that happened during his lifetime. The record continued over time and catalogued additional changed and the evolution of the home. It is likely the best documented building still in existence today. 

​The photos are of Strawberry Hill and show a few of the unique surviving details of the house. Pretty amazing!

My quest this week is to at least find a place I can have some turkey since that will likely be the only thing I can find to represent a Thanksgiving feast, the rest will have to be improvised. 

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving Week!  
​Cheers!