Friday, February 11, 2011

Reasons to Give Thanks

When your child is given a gift as the parent our first thing is to make sure they thank the gift giver.  We would never want anyone to say our children have no manners or worse - they are ungrateful.  That kind of thought would knock us out of the running for PARENT OF THE YEAR!

So in order for us to stay in the running let's demonstrate the art of giving thanks - regularly!

Real fast name five reasons to give thanks -here are mine for today
  1. connecting with other creative people.
  2. a supportive family 
  3. making a new friend this week 
  4. completing a task 
  5. the breath I breathe 
  6. pleasant memories - okay that was one to grow on!!
Want to change the direction of your day?  Give thanks!


Laughing All the Way

I LOVE TO LAUGH!  I love the sensation my body gets when I am laughing.  I love the fact that you can actually loose control of your bodily functions while laughing.

Recently my son shared with me that while at lunch with friends and his teacher, a comment was made and he laughed in the process of drinking - you know what happened next.  The spraying of the table with" liquid laughter residue".  My son was not very happy and felt his friend should have exercised better timing.  I gently reminded him that while timing is everything in comedy, funny is funny because it is usually not planned.

I began remembering days where I laughed until the point of loosing control and realized I kept on laughing.  There are two places I can always count on loosing laugh calories; with my cousins from my mother's family and with our family friends the Hopsons. These remain 100% laugh-fests! Growing up there were many episodes of milk or kool-aid through the nose whenever we gathered with the Hopsons.  I am not sure how we ever got through a meal with them because it seemed someone always had something funny to say.  When I gather with my cousins, I accept the fact that it will take me twice as long to eat because of the laughter.  And even though the Hopson family and my family have experienced the regular losses and disappointments of life, there always seems plenty of room at the table for a huge helping of laughter.