I have been living in the same cloud as Eeyore lately. It’s dark when I leave work, it’s cold as shit, Donald Trump is still president. But I was reminded earlier this week about my year of gratitude. I spent the entire year documenting #dailygratitude on Instagram and it was awesome. You can see my recap here – it makes me smile.

The last few years, I had a planner that had a spot for daily gratitude, so I was still in the practice of writing it down daily. This year, I tried a new planner and I just feel like I’ve lost that practice a little bit. With my gloomy attitude lately, I’m going to focus on it here a little bit this evening.

Here are the things I’m grateful for:

Our Christmas cards are ordered. We organized our props, took the photos, put things in order and got them ordered while Shutterfly had a sale happening. If you’re new here, we take holiday cards seriously. We have no human children, so we fill people’s mailboxes with ridiculous cards that will make them laugh. Snail mail is great and even though we strive to be paperless in many parts of our life – we love the idea of reaching out the old school way. Here is our card from last year (and yes, there’s usually a poem of some kind):

 Elections happened. Reading the news today was actually happy and exciting. I read all the stories of newly elected officials that had overcome some crazy stuff, found the courage to run for office AND THEN WIN. It energized me. Now we have 363 days until the midterm elections and we need to keep being loud, respectful, loving, kind, smart and aware.

Family Matters. We have been indulging in this 90’s classic on Hulu for the last few weeks. It’s amazing. Plus, we learned that the original Family Matters house on the north side of Chicago is going to be torn down. Good news for you – we visited it in September and took a picture:

Not sure what that house is to the left, but it definitely wasn’t there in the 90’s.

Sore muscles. Weird, I haven’t really done much exercise lately. You know – all the life changes and craziness makes me put my own health on the back burner, BUT I worked out this weekend and my muscles were sore for two days and it made me so happy. I’m alive, my body still works and I made myself a little stronger. Now to figure out how to make this part of a routine that already feels so rushed.

Vacation countdowns. I love that apple allows you to name group text messages. We currently have one going with our friends in Colorado and every day we update it with the countdown until we visit them. I love racing everyone each day to update the number and watching it get closer and closer. Count downs are almost as awesome for me as lists.

Christmas Shopping Lists. This year will be a piece of cake. No more stressful shopping. We are not doing gifts for the nieces & nephews this year. Instead, we are picking a two on one activity and that’s their Christmas gift. Our first one is going to see Annie with the oldest niece and I’m so excited. On top of that, my brother & sister in law don’t want to exchange gifts this year. We are pretty much down to just spoiling our parents and a few friends and then doing some charity stuff. It will be a fun year of gifting instead of a giant list that we try and force things into.

Our Tribe. I haven’t published my Quincy post yet, but it’s coming. I do need to say that as hard as saying goodbye to my first four legged child, it’s been so comforting to know that we have surrounded ourselves with some of the greatest hearts in the human race. Now that I’ve lived through this, I definitely know what made me feel a little peace and will make sure to pay it forward. I can’t thank our friends and family enough for the kindness, love and support. So many tears have been shed in this house, but a few of them were just pure gratitude.

I’ll wrap it up there for today. Remember, this is the month of thankfulness. It should be a daily practice, but if you fall out of habit like I did, take a minute and show some gratitude now.