The Thankful Project - Day 14

Today I'm linking up with Kenzie at Chasing Happy for Day 14 of the Thankful Project.   

Today's prompt is: a blessing.

I'm not really a religious person, and when I think of the word "blessing" I usually think of it in a religious context.  Like "God Bless You" or "a blessing from God."  So I don't often think of things that happen to me in life in terms of "blessings".  But I think that at its core, a blessing is simply a wonderful thing that happens to you, whether because some mystical force created a miracle, or because your neighbor brought you dinner when you were sick.

On good days, it's easy to say that everything in my life is a blessing.  I have an awesome husband, beautiful daughters, a couple good friends and a great family.  On bad days, it's a little bit harder to see the blessings in my life.  When things are rough, it's easy to pick out the bad things -- lack of money, all the things falling down around the house, piles of laundry, clothes don't fit...

But even on the worst days, after I put my girls to bed and creep back in their rooms to stand over and watch them, I am filled with so much happiness.  Staring at their innocent little faces and knowing that I made them and they are mine, I can start to look around and see all the other wonderful things in my life.

Sure, we don't have a lot of money, but we can pay our bills and buy food.  Sure, we don't have a big beautiful house, but our home is cozy and loud and happy.  And yeah, I would love to lose a few pounds and look better in my clothes, but at least my health is good overall. 

Counting my blessings is something I've been trying to stop and do a lot lately.  As soon as Emily was born, time started speeding up.  Since Caroline's been here, I feel like it's all just flying by and I'm trying so hard to hang on and not miss a thing.  

It's not something I consciously do, like kneeling beside my bed and thanking God for my blessings every night (I would get a serious side-eye from Jerry if I just started doing that all of a sudden), but whenever everything seems to be moving too fast, I will stop and think about all the wonderful people in my life, and all the happy little moments that I am blessed to experience.

{My favorite Irish blessing}