Looking at the bigger picture, and saying thanks

Good morning! It looks like our incredibly fall-like weather is ending, and the heat and humidity is coming back. Darn!

After the thunderstorms reduced my pups to trembling messes, I woke this morning to take Bolo on our morning run. He still seemed not quite himself, and wasn’t interested in breakfast. But we both love our morning runs, so off we went!

But where I was ready for some good exercise, Bolo was more interested in sniffing and wandering around instead of his usual run-all-over-the trail habit. I felt myself growing impatient, as this was my only chance for exercise today, and he obviously was still feeling the affects of the storm–I could hear his rumbly tummy. (Bolo always carries his stress in his tummy, which usually amounts to either puking or diarrhea and lack of appetite!) But then my little voice inside hollered “STOP!” And I immediately realized that I was forgetting that this was the dog who was completely paralyzed one year ago, the dog who I nursed back to health for over 6 months. The dog that is my best friend and exercise partner. How could I be so selfish????

So I took a deep breath and looked around me, at the mist that had settled into the fields, at the fall flowers that were already starting to show evidence of blooming soon. And I wandered around the trails with Bolo, at his pace, and thanked God for giving me my friend back. And I said thank you for the beautiful weather we have been blessed with these last couple weeks, and the list of gratitude went on and on…

…..sometimes it is easy to lose sight of all that we have, because we are taught by society to focus on all that we do not have. I encourage you to take a moment today to really focus on the big picture and say thank you for all that you have been given. Never mind what you don’t have. You may get it later, or you might just find that you don’t need it anyway. But I have a feeling that no matter where we are in our lives, we all have very much to be thankful for…so go ahead: say thank you!

peace,

Diane