My first reaction was annoyance. He did not know what my day had been like.
It had started with Jeff pointing out a new door ding on my car. SIGH. Now, I know it's just a car, but it's my first BRAND NEW, never been driven by anyone else, car. I had waited for 43 years for this car. I love my car. And, I might or might not have named her "Sasha Fierce." Regardless, I'm a little annoyed at everyone else's failure to treat my car with the awe and respect she deserves. I begin to grumble.
And, it had been grocery shopping day, which, with my love for food should be fun, but it is one of my least favorite things to do where I currently live.
We eat a lot of seafood in my house. But, because of where we live, good seafood requires me to take an hours drive (round trip). I hit the road and am immediately cranky. Seriously, when I get in the car and drive, it is because I have somewhere to go. I'm not out for a slow, leisurely, pleasure drive. I grew up driving in the city. I still drive like I live in a big city. However, I now live in a much smaller community. I spend most of this drive talking myself out of justifiable homicide. Seriously? Who drives 5 miles UNDER the speed limit in the fast lane. UGH! And don't even get me started on 4 way stops. I sit there and wonder how all these people passed the drivers test. So, I do get to one of the bright spots in my grocery shopping day which is Joe's Fish Market and I just love this place. Then, with my fish on ice for the drive back, I turn around and drive home. There's an accident and 40 miles of construction cones shutting down one whole lane for the 5 yards of actual construction work being performed. The grumbling and complaining has gotten considerably louder at this point. I put the fish away and begin to mentally prepare myself for the dreaded grocery store trip.
I go to the grocery store to begin the most frustrating part of the day. You see, my grocery store likes to turn the shopping experience into a frustrating food version of Where's Waldo. Every week, they like to move stuff around so that you must go on the craziest scavenger hunt ever to find the items you are looking for. Only to find an empty shelf where the product should be. Then, someone thought of the brilliant idea to narrow the isles so that on a good day, only one shopping cart can get through at a time. They add to the fun by putting up displays of special items in the middle of the isle to form the craziest obstacle course you've ever seen. So after an hour or so of frustrated shopping, and with an overflowing cart I proceed to the checkout lines. They have 3 cashiers, 1 bagger and extremely long lines. I get into what appears to be shortest line. It becomes clear that I have chosen poorly. I finally get up to the cashier and start unloading my cart. The sacker takes one look at how much I have in my cart and decides it is time to go on break. Brilliant. So, after unloading the cart-- I step down to sack. Except, there are no sacks to be found. Finally, I manage to track down sacks and begin to bag groceries, while trying to answer the cashiers questions of how I plan on cooking the ingredients I am purchasing. Another bagger shows up to finish sacking groceries so I can pay for the food. He immediately puts my tomatoes on the bottom of the bag and piles in all sorts of heavy stuff on top. Grumble, Grumble, Grumble.
I go home and spend over an hour putting groceries away, cleaning out old stuff to replace with new. Grumble about some of the food that we have let go bad. Grumble. I discover that because I forgot to take my list with me, I didn't purchase some of the items I needed. And discover that I should not have purchased some of the items I did. Grumble.
My day has been used up. I set out the needed items for dinner and prepare to go get Keagan. He is late getting out of practice. Grumble. This means that I will be late getting dinner into the oven. Grumble.
Driving home, Keagan's comment begins to settle into my brain. Boy, I really am cranky. You could call me Cranky McCranky Pants today. I begin to think, why am I so cranky? What do I have to complain about? Then it hits me. What I have been doing all day is focusing on the negative. I forgot to be grateful today. And I have so much to be grateful for!
My family all got up this morning healthy! I'm so grateful to be blessed with an amazing husband and awesome son! We woke up in the U.S. As many problems as our country has, I am grateful that I live here.
I am so grateful that I can afford a car. There was a time in my life where I couldn't afford to buy a car. I am grateful that I have a reliable car. There have been times in my life where I had cars that I nicknamed "Willit run?" I can afford to fill my car up with gas. There have been times in my life where I could only afford to put 5 dollars worth in and pray that it lasted me the whole week.
I am grateful that I can buy more than enough food for my family. And also buy food that we can share with others when they come to our house for dinner. I remember a time when we didn't have enough money to cover the bills and food. The food was put on a credit card that month. I remember when we would eat pasta for days on end because it was cheap. I am grateful that we can eat a reasonably healthy meal. I am grateful that even though dinner will be a little late, we at least have food to eat. Many people in this world exist on one meal a day. We get three, plus snacks.
I am trying to remember every day to be grateful. I have these quotes sitting on my desk to remind me to be grateful every day:
"God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say thank you?"
"If every morning you can find a reason to say, 'Yes, it's going to be a beautiful day.' And everyday you find a reason to say, 'Yes, it is a beautiful day.' And every night, you find a reason to say, 'Yes, it was a beautiful day.' Then one day you'll look back and easily say, 'Yes, it was a beautiful life."
Today, I'm grateful for all aspects of my life. Hope you find many reasons to grateful today as well.
Ok-- so, I can't blog with out some photos. So here are a few food photos from last week.
Keagan requested that I make him an Apple Crisp. I didn't get a photo until after he got ahold of it, but here it is.
This is the reason I love Joe's Fish Market. He got me some fresh Opah flown in from Hawaii, never frozen. It is my favorite fish of all time! Just cook it with a little olive oil, lime, salt and pepper. YUM!
Remember,
"Thankfulness disrupts complaining."
and
"Being grateful uplifts the soul."
No comments:
Post a Comment