Wednesday, April 26, 2006

WORKS for me--Wednesday!

I couldn't resist! Shannon, from, Rocks in my Dryer, has started a really cool Wednesday challenge. "Works for me Wednesday" is an opportunity to share helpful tips on short-cuts, helpful tools or aides that you have discovered that make your life easier! While this post does not entail helpful hints about housekeeping (you'll never see that here!), organizational tools (nope, not goin' there either) or secrets about raising happy and healthy children (if I KNEW that, I'd write a best-seller!), nevertheless, I just can't resist participating!

Today is a red letter day at our house! Red letter day? One of great commemoration! One to mark on my calendar with neon R.E.D. letters--flashing if I could find such a pen! I'll try to curb my enthusiasm--but here goes.

Works for me!

Our daughter will graduate from college on May 13th! Woo-hoo! After submitting more than 20 applications to nearby hospitals and Care Centers, after waiting for months to even hear back from any of them, after a bit of confusion--after all, isn't there a shortage of Nurses around the country (???), she has been hired as a RN in the Neo-natal center of St. John's Hopsital; exactly the area of care she specialized in! Double woo-hoo! Her husband, my most-favorite son-in-law, has been hired full-time following his internship with an accounting firm in Bloomington. AND our son, of course, is happily working at the Happiest Place on Earth--Disney World.

Now in case any of you missed why this WORKS for me this sunny Wednesday in Minnesota--let me just share! This is gonna work just fine! This is the first time in oh-so-many-years that my husband and I can really breathe, yes, the deep-reach-your-belly-cleansing-breathes! Our daughter, our son-in-law, and our adult first born son--are gainfully employed! Yup--that works for us!

The deeper work of this is simple: gratitude. While we are not guaranteed an easy passage on this journey, it does seem to make the road easier when we focus on gratitude. It seems whenever I face a bump in the road, my focus becomes narrow and I zero in on the problem. Rarely do I lift my head up from the problem and look around; or even within!~ In recent years, I have challenged myself to lift my eyes up and broaden my horizon. To my surprise (duh!), I have experienced gratitude! Even in the deepest, darkest hours of anxiety, I have found gratitude. Others have written about gratitude:

Anthony Robbins: "When you are grateful fear disappears and abundance appears."
Lionel Hampton: "Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind."
Eileen Caddy: "Gratitude helps you to grow and expand; gratitude brings joy and
laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you."
John Henry Jowett: "Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic."
And Dennis Prager reminds us that there is always room for gratitude: "Given the amount of unjust suffering and unhappiness in the world, I am deeply grateful for, sometimes perplexed by, how much misery I have been spared."

So, while there may be unknown troubles looming, what works for me is gratitude! An anonymous author sums it up for me each day: "Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow."

Gratitude: Works for me!

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a great one! Good for you, and all your crew...

Kristen said...

This works for me! :-) That is wonderful. Take those deep cleansing breaths often. It sounds like you deserve them!

Chaotic Mom said...

Man oh man, I love your post today. My boys are still young. I look forward to such gratitude as you have with your grown children, but have to remember to live with gratitude as things are now, too.

I absolutely LOVED the quotes you had at the end of the post. Am printing those to tape up near my workspace. ;)

Theresa said...

Sounds like a successful mom with healthy "adult" children. I only pray I will get this far with my kidddos.

As our pastor always said, Our job as parents is to raise our children and prepare them to leave the home. Sounds like you did exactly that. With the best foundation ever, Christ in tow! Way to go!

Domestic Goddess said...

Thanks for taking time to comment on my blog.
I just read what you wrote about gratitude. OH MAN! Does that ever resonate with me! You TOTALLY hit it on the head!
I need more gratitude in my life...thanks for making it even more obvious than it already is!

kpjara said...

Gratitude definitely WORKS...Wednesday and every other day!

Blessings.

Aunt Murry said...

Yeah! For all of you and your children!

Shalee said...

Loving your enthusiam and the way it is Working For You!!!

Yeah God! (and you too.)

Anonymous said...

Happy, happy, joy, joy! :)

Susie said...

I can relate to your joy on this! Our 35 yr old daughter is graduating from college this May! It will open so many more doors for her and her family!

Diane@Diane's Place said...

I had your post up but hadn't read it since my daughter just came in from school on her way to work. She opened her mail and found out she has won a scholarship for college, and she is getting some awards at school for her senior year! Then I read your wonderful post. Talk about timing! :)

I am truly grateful for all my blessings, and thank you for the reminder, Diane. :)

great2beme said...

Gratitude is what keeps us moving through the incredibly slow times and through the great fast times, but just remembering to reflect and see it is key. I am thankful for still being here and watching my kids grow into all that God has planned for them. This was a great uplifting blog today.

Nettie said...

Congratulations! And I agree. Gratitude has helped me through trials and better enjoy my life many times. Works for me, too! (Oh, and thanks for the comment on my blog!)

Anonymous said...

There is no difficulty in finding others who have suffered more, and you are so right...we need to be grateful that we do not have more to endure! Rejoicing with you in this milestone in the lives of your 2 older children! Hope you can relax a bit more now!!

someone else said...

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for sharing those thoughts.

Perri said...

Good news piled on top of good news on top of more good news. It is a red letter day. mark it down!

C. H. Green said...

I'm glad to see things are looking up for both of us. Blessings to you Diane. And send me some readers! You get around. LOL

Lynn said...

What great news! Congrats to your daughter on her new job and graduating!

Kate said...

Wow, what a moment of pure JOY for you all! How exciting!! I absolutely love the way you call it a Red Letter Day! Amen to all of this! :) (And congrats to you and your family!)