Gratitude Friday: Taking Care of Myself so I can Take Care of Others

Last Friday of the month, and it has been a good month!  I ran my first ever e-course through my Ghostblogger business, which was a MAJOR learning experience, but so good.  It’s made me really excited to do a bigger course soon! (Tangent: Would you like to see a course from Laughing Lemon Pie? If so, tell me what you’d like to learn in the comments below.)

Feeling inspired this morning, so I thought I’d do a round-up post of what I’ve been doing/loving/grateful for lately. Turns out, there’s a lot!!

What I’m reading:

I’m really enjoying A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever by Marianne Williamson.  Her premise is that we overeat (or do any number of other destructive behaviors) because we are searching for love—and, at its most basic level, what she calls Divine Love, or basically love that comes from within.

It’s made me think a lot about the reasons I find that I still overeat (though, less than I ever used to) even though I KNOW BETTER.  Have you ever had that experience?  Where you say to yourself, “What is WRONG with me?? I know better!”  Well, turns out that, according to Williamson, at least, our heads can know better all day long, but until our hearts figure it out, we’re still going to keep making those mistakes.

I’m so grateful to live in an era when information like this is available.  Say what you will about the self-help movement (some of it is total hookum, I know that!) but the fact that we can talk about problems and get help for them from many different sources is something to be grateful for in my book.

I’m also grateful for the sort of surprising wake-up call that while I thought I wanted my core desired feelings this year to be elegance, abundance, and balance (I still do), the thing I really want, that is the undercurrent of all of those, is to feel loved.  And, P.S., that has to come from me first.  Kind of a big revelation this week!

What I’m eating:

I was super grateful to find organic heirloom tomatoes on offer this week from Bountiful Baskets.  Yes, they’re from Mexico.  Yes, they’re WILDLY out of season for Colorado.  But you know what? Sometimes, when there’s six inches of snow on the ground, and you’ve been eating a lot of root vegetables and kale lately, a caprese salad with organic Mexican tomatoes and fresh basil from the pot by your window is like a glimpse of summer.  Add to that pulling out a package of those nectarines I froze this summer (to be eaten with yogurt or angel food cake, naturally), and it’s beginning to taste a lot like July over here!

And sometimes you need a little July in January.

Other recipes I’ve been trying:

• Broken Arm Breakfast Casserole — Very yummy, and worked out OK, even though I forgot to rinse the cottage cheese.
• Perfect Pan Roasted Chicken Thighs — Which really are perfect, by the way.  A great technique to know, especially when chicken thighs are cheap!
• Fiesta Quinoa Salad — One of my faves!  I was a little peeved when my husband took the rest of it to work for lunch today.  But I guess I deserved it, as I ate the last of the bread (which he normally uses for sandwiches) as guacamole toast for breakfast…

What I’m taking action on:

Remember how I treated myself to a Le Cruset dutch oven for Christmas earlier this month?  I’m still loving it!  As part of trying out this whole “loving myself” enough to give myself what I need thing, I’m saving up to make one purchase a month to improve myself and my life, but this month, I got a couple more.

Late last year, I moved my office into the perfect little nook in the corner of our (oddly shaped) master bedroom, and I’ve been loving it!  But I’ve also been sitting on an unfinished wood step stool from IKEA instead of an actual chair. Um.  Yes.  That’s not really taking myself or my business seriously, is it??

So when I saw that this chair I had been coveting at World Market was on sale—and they had a 15% off coupon on their website—I jumped on it.  I can’t even tell you how grateful I am that I did!  It looks like a real “office” now!  And I don’t get splinters in my bum!  (KIDDING! It wasn’t that bad.  But it was hard…)

I also made a trip to the Mac Store and Genius Bar to fix a problem I’d been living with and working around for MONTHS.  Of course, they figured it out and it was a stupid-simple fix (ain’t it always the way??) but I’m glad I gave myself the gift of taking the time to just DO IT.

Crazy how we put off the things we need, even when they’re not that hard to implement.

What I’m truly grateful for:

I’ve just got so much to be grateful for right now!

After arriving ridiculously early to wait in line to register, my daughter has a spot in the preschool we want her to attend this fall.

My dad’s doctors are optimistic that his bone marrow transplant went well and is doing what it’s supposed to do.

My best friend from high school is healing after a traumatic ordeal and has good things to look forward to.

I invited someone really cool to be a contributor over here, and she’s already making awesome contributions!  Thanks, Emily!

What are you grateful for right now?  I’m also grateful that you made it to the end of this post!  LOL!  So tell me what you’re grateful for in the comments below and share the love.  🙂