on the up side...

Last week Dan sent me the following excerpt from one of our favorite books because it seemed to sum up what we both so strongly believe:

Your mind is unquestionably your most valuable possession. You may lose every material thing you own, but knowledge can never be taken from you. With it, you can earn a new fortune, build a new home, and buy anything you truly desire. No one else can control your thoughts; even the cruelest tyrant cannot force you to think about something you refuse to accept. When you make a deliberate decision to take control of your mind and feed it positive, constructive thoughts, you are on your way to taking control of your life. The thoughts you allow to dominate your mind will determine what you will get from life.

 Isn't that powerful and freeing? To know that  you have 100% control over the way your mind operates- what you allow it to focus on, how strong you enable it to become, where you allow it to take you- all of that is completely up to you. Incredible. 


But, to be honest, there are days- or more likely multiple times each day- when keeping my mind focused on the right things, the positive things, is really hard and I often fail. Unfortunately, my personality type is very unforgiving when I do this and I beat myself up over it. So, I'm working on it, working on progress instead of perfection and working on keeping those communication lines open with God to THANK Him throughout the day for all of those blessings that I just seem to take for granted or overlook as real blessings because they're too small. 

So here goes 5 things I'm thankful for this morning- because it's nearly impossible to let your mind focus on the negatives when your heart is so full of gratitude. 

1. For coffee. Who needs sleep when you have this guy in your life? 
2. For the freedom to work from home when I need like on days like this when I just need to be closer to my family- both physically and mentally.  
3. For the opportunity to take Jackson and Audrey away next week to the beach. 
4. For our new bed. Dan and I finally got a "big kid bed" and the amount of space in that thing blows my mind, I can finally sleep with my legs and arms completely stretched out like I've always dreamed of, no exaggeration. Jackson calls it our "weally, weally big bed."
5. For Dan. Where do I even begin on how amazing he is?