I have not yet decided on my goals for this year, but I have decided on my goals for this month:

• Be positive
• Practice gratitude
• Use gentle answers  

Be positive – not whine so much, be so negative or be so critical.

Practice gratitude – I think this goes with being positive.  I found the quote below on the Internet, which I thought was very good for me to use: 

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Use gentle answers – I am too quick to fire back when I am wronged; it is my nature, it is who I am.  However, I am not always right (gasp!) and to be honest, I do not like being treated that way.  I believe very much in the Bible verse from Proverbs 15:1 that says that a gentle turns away wrath. 

So how am I doing?

 I did good yesterday until towards the end of the day.  Fatigue definitely played a role in using being negative and unhappy. 

Today started out with a bad headache as I got too hot during the night.  I got off to a poor start leaving the house, even though my favorite boy toy had worked hard at making a nice breakfast and two big pots of soup the night before.  He was in such a good mood and I was so sour!  I did call later to apologize, but it was wrong of me to act that way in the first place.  It’s hard to go back and undo a mood later.

 I found also on Sunday, as I was vacuuming floors and considering going through the mail to pay bills and take care of stuff, how hard it was to have gratitude for my blessings.  I think it is because while I like nice things and a good life, it is also a lot of work to maintain and take care of it.  It makes it hard to have gratitude when my whole life seems consumed with the care and feeding of my blessings and so little time is left over to enjoy them or anything else.

 I am not saying that is a right attitude, but it is something I need to think about and determine my attitude about it.  I also think that one of the things to pray about is being able to pay to get my house cleaned and the yard taken care of.  I need that both physically (it really devastates me for a couple of days afterwards – I’m excessively tired and achy) and in having the time necessary for other things, both in maintenance of God’s many blessings and for some leisure time.

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