Calm Amongst the Chaos

I have been sharing all the things I am grateful for during this month of thankfulness and it has been a real eye opening experience. Some days I struggled with what to give thanks for beyond God, my family and friends. I was able to do some stretching of course some days, but other days I didn’t feel thankful for much. I know that sounds awful, but I spent part of this month grouchy. Moving sucks. I am not an organized person, but I 99% of the time know where I place my stuff, but moving has given me not even a 50% accuracy rate on finding things. And I am not talking about socks here, I have lost my debit card and had to get a new one which now requires me to renew everything I had linked to, which is a lot, and a $100 Lowes gift card. That guts me. We could really use that card and I am 50% sure it will show up again, but it kills me I lost it.
So to say I have felt frazzled this month would put it lightly. And it is nothing I want help with, I need to put my stuff where I want it to go therefore I am back to knowing where it is 99% of the time again.. I just am not finding the time with work, holidays, kids messing everything up before they are ever put in their appropriate place oh and the Christmas decorations we need to put up and gifts we need to buy. Oh and the passports we need to get. Sigh. Sigh. Ok so this is why I was scrambling from time to time to say I am thankful for the sun that so gloriously rises each and every morning and for the beautiful faces I get to see smiling at me each morning.
I lost track of what I was thankful for and this month each day, even when I didn’t feel like it, I was forced (and by forced I mean I placed an expectation on myself and to all of facebook and Lord knows those are expectations you cannot deny!) to count my blessings. This has been the most eye opening and wonderful way to look at life. Am I normally happy and easy going, yes, totally! But I am also grouchy and get annoyed easily so this was the best exercise I could do for myself and shouldn’t stop at December.
I started taking things that were annoying, like say framers outside our window this morning pounding away at 6 am and turned into gratefulness that we will soon have neighbors and not just neighbors, but ones with a 7 year old daughter that Andi already met and played with.
I got my eyebrows shaped for the first time in my life, back in my modeling days one dude went nuts on me and since then I have just been plucking the strays, anyway I got waxed and apparently had a reaction. My forehead was red with white heads all over it. It was atrocious! And I will admit my skin is and has always been my biggest vice. Again in my modeling days I would get reprimanded for it. My grandma would always ask me why I was broken out. Zits have put me in some real downer moments in my life and at nearly 34 they are still ever present. But this might have been the worst break out I have ever had. BUT as bothered as I was, I wasn’t that bothered. I felt reminded that my self worth isn’t in my beauty. I spent many years, young impressionable years, holding my self worth in how I looked and I am no longer that girl and it took that reaction to show me that yes I have broken out skin, but I am still a cool chick. A cool chick that could use a little make up, but none the less… a cool chick. At least I am to those that matter and that is all that matters.
And this morning Andi Jane disobeyed me with turning on TV before she was dressed for school. She got sassy and I had to walk away. As I was getting dressed I thought about all the years I had prayed God would make Lily throw me a temper tantrum. Something showing me she’s in there and has a voice and it never happened. So I knew deep down that even though I was annoyed with my Andi Jane’s choices and the way she was carrying herself, I was also thankful that she has a voice, that she has an opinion. So I went downstairs to her and held her hands and said Andi Jane, even when I am upset with your actions, I still love you and am thankful that God gave us you. Well she just hugged me harder than ever before and I could tell she was thankful for my forgiveness. Our morning went on so much better and I sent her to school knowing I am not going to set her day up for disaster.
I am not bragging because most mornings our days does not go off like that, I will yell and she will pout and I  send her to school mad and I feel awful all day. But today that didn’t happen because my mind grasped the blessings I have and it changed our whole morning. It’s changed my whole month. I am thankful for so many big things and yet so many little precious things that I just don’t ever want to take for granted.
Like yesterday in the park. Lily couldn’t ride her scooter there and play on the slides, but I was thankful that we just got to sit and hold hands.