Have you seen the one thousand gifts in 2012 JOY DARE yet?  NO? well, it’s okay, I printed it out on Saturday, and added to my list.  Jump in where you are at, 366×3=1098, so you can miss a few (and once I start looking I can’t stop seeing). You can find it on Ann Voskamp’s blog A Holy Experience and it can help you seek things to be grateful for if you ever “get stuck” recording your scattered graces.

I decided to use it to add to my list this last week, and I started from day one because I knew I could find enough things to be grateful for to fill up a couple pages:

January’s Joy Dare: capture these gifts

1. 3 things about yourself you are grateful for

• compassionate (when I take the time to gather a different perspective)
• enduring faith (all those difficult times where I knew God was holding me)
• health, even though it is not perfect, I am NOT sick or dying, it’s just a time

2. a gift outside, inside, on a plate

Fresh Organic Fruit (and veg) in January

• trees dancing in the ocean wind
• clean sheets
• organic grapes, kiwi, carrots & cheese (and pickles)

3. 3 lines you overheard that were graces

• “of course” from the 2 year-old running off to do me a favour
• 5 year-old – “why is our tree still up?”
  7 year-old “because it’s artificial”
  5yo “what is artificial?”
  7yo “It’s like Terry Fox’s leg” enter Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope legacy from 7yo.
• “[they] ate my pancakes”…”The kids need to spit them out for me” 2 year-old again, wanted more butterfly pancakes an hour after Daddy made them. She WAS going to eat the spit-up pancakes. And she DID run off to tell “the kids” to spit them out.

Love Mug

4. one gift old, new, & blue

• My white “Bon Marche” teddy bear that is now in my son’s room. I slept with it until I was married.
• My new “love” tea mug made by Just Potters
• Picture of my Beach Sprite that makes me smile.

Beach Sprite

5. something you’re reading, you’re making, you’re seeing

• answers to prayer on twitter
• the baby I’m growing
• the movements of the baby – wiggling, playing, hiccoughing

6. one thing in your bag, your fridge, your heart

• Thank you Abba for gluten-free, corn-free starlight mints
• Greek yogurt with honey (packed with protein and calcium)
• Thank you for the opportunity to bless my husband through prayer. I wish I could be a help-meet to him now, but I see how you fill him when his energy is low.

7. 3 graces from people you love

Sunday's Cards from Savannah Hope

• My prayer-filled prayer shawl
• My home served by my mother-in-law cleaning, cooking, decorating, caring for my children.
• Drawings from Savannah Hope that punctuate my day.

and the rest from last week…

35. Thank you that Ken loves me enough to climb the stairs a hundred times a day to bring me coffee, food, napkins, and whatever else my little heart desires.

36. Thank you for my 2 year old who, just before falling asleep, grabs my arm TIGHT and says “I love you so much Mommy”, and doesn’t let go.

37. That my 13 year old can pull a VERY GOOD (and very hot) Americano!

38. Light bulbs

39. Beeswax candles

40. Ken’s photographs printed on my walls (see Beach Sprite above)

41. The mystery of these January Fruit Flies in my bedroom…

42. Classic Rock Stations that play not only music from my high school era (Peter Gabriel for instance) but also my parents’ (CCR, Pink Floyd…) so I don’t feel quite so old.

43.  Lists that keep on going and don’t need to be checked off.

44. Assistant Captain status awarded to my little man after 2 shoot-out goals!

45. Tylenol. and prescription Morphine when the Tylenol isn’t enough anymore.

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And a picture to prove #6 from Thanksgiving: Week One

Why we like Leave-In-Conditioner in our house

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