Day 5

Sometimes Facebook is a great thing…for one, you get to keep up with all your friends and relatives, especially if you have friends or relatives you’d rather not really have contact with in person or too often…I know, it’s a horrible to thing to say…but admit it, it’s true, there are some people we’d rather have as little to do with as possible!

Six days ago someone tagged me on a post…a game…the purpose was to write down three things you were grateful for for five days and then tag three people to continue the game…I was tagged by someone I’ve never personally met, but we share one interest, Glass…beadmaking…or Lampworking…

Okay, it’s easy, three things your grateful for…well, maybe not so easy…because you don’t want to be grateful for your comfy bed…though you are…so grateful for the things that make life better….I guess.  And the tagging didn’t go well at all…of the 12 people I tagged in 4 days, only one person decided to play…a niece…so on the last day, I thought, the hell with the tagging…and did my grateful…only I decided that I would just do one…because I was going to write a few things about this person….You know life is encompassed by people…your family especially…parents, siblings and if your lucky, or maybe not so lucky, you’ll have a bus load of cousins to live in your life…I didn’t have that…nor aunts or uncles, or grandparents…they lived a distance from us and we didn’t have the means or transportation to be taking visits…which was okay by us…we had each other, and we had friends…so you didn’t know what you were missing because you didn’t know these people….
So in trying to think of what I was grateful for I decided on Ben….my spouse…only because occasionally he feels left out of my tirades and whatever else I write on Facebook or where ever I write things down on….so…in the spirit of sharing…here ya go…

I’ve spent the last five days writing down three things I am grateful for! It’s not been as easy as I thought it would be! Writing down what your grateful for, without being trite! And only one m,m,,m,, person took me up after being tagged!

Thank you Yvonne Maldonado Costello for doing this. I will remember your loving heart and peaceful soul for as long as I have breath! God Bless You!

Today I am grateful for

Ben.

After 40 something years and after finding me standing by the jukebox in my pretty pink dress at Big G’s in Round Rock in 1965…we are still together! Ha! It hasn’t always been pretty, good or perfect, neither of is perfect, unlike ‘other’ people we know! LOL!!! But we produced 4 gorgeous beautiful smart and meaner then hell kids (just like their dad) and we have some beautiful granddaughters, a handsome grandson and even a couple of great grand kids! I know, I’m too young! Ha! And it wasn’t like much of a choice…if I had, I’d sewed up those girls and not taken out the stitches until they were 40…

We aren’t rich, we don’t live in a mansion, my housekeeping skills suck, I’m not a stickler for make-up and fancy dresses, and I’m most likely to get a set of pots for our anniversary then a pair of diamond earrings. If I get anything at all….but that’s because I lose/misplace earrings like I lose change and I look better in the kitchen making a pot of beans then wearing diamonds and pearls! We have fun, we share a few interests, but we give each other space, so that we aren’t on each other’s throats. Bens always supported, financially and emotionally, all my crafty ideas! Never complaining when a new pile of fabric, glass, or whatever it was that struck my fancy and head! He taught me to change a flat, change my oil, though I’ve never done that, but if I had too, I could! He’ says, so you don’t have to rely on anyone ever! An I don’t! It’s difficult giving each other independence, because one day you could wake up and find out you no longer need each other! But, we’ve managed.

When the world is mad at us, we say, the hell with you too! We have each other, our kids, our little family and we’re content!

Never caring too much for what people say or think we’ve danced to the beat of a distant and different drummer! Though, to the chagrin of many, I have taught Ben that! Life is too short, to sweet to waste it on inconsequential things or people. I think we’ve taught our kids the same. Independence, self reliance, and love and respect for God.

It’s been fun, it’s been a struggle, it’s been ugly, but that’s what life is like. The true measure of a person is how you get up, dust the dirt off your hands and carry on, without dragging all the garbage of life on your back everyday till you die.

I had three things to chose, but I only picked one…because it encompasses most everything that has been most of my adult life.

I can’t say that tomorrow I won’t wake up and say, screw this and run off to some distant land and live a different life! It’s an option! We all have options! It’s just deciding which are important, which are real. I can’t say that I’m totally fulfilled or living in happy land…but we all make life what it is….maybe someday, I’ll just not only learn to be grateful but appreciate things much more…right now…I’m looking for something that’s not got tentacles and binds me or controls me or stagnates my imagination, my self discovery…hell, it could be in the back yard, alone side the fence…but I ain’t wanted to walk back there and step on dog shit…or get bite by mosquitoes or chiggers…

life is a discovery….a journey…and I’m swimming without my life vest…and fighting off the sharks….but in the meantime….

We are definitely way beyond perfect, especially me! But, I live my life expecting very little from anyone, it’s a recipe for disappointment…and I’ve always told Ben, a lesson he took years to learn, don’t ever do anything for anyone expecting something back in return, even a thank you! In the in, it is only God whom we have to worry about and he will repay our works or lack of…..Though lately, he’s been relearning that!
Of course we all want to be appreciated, and we want praise from those who we do things for…but that lead
to expectations and then those expectations lead to disappointments…
There were times, when I thought of murder, but the idea of dingy prison whites and waiting on death row, quickly changed my mind…HA!
We don’t live in church. But we believe and God is never far from our hearts, our minds.

Life is a gift. And for all that I have, all that I am, all those that I know, all those whom I love, for whom and things I yearn for, the good and the difficult, I am eternally grateful! Grateful, yes sir, eternally grateful indeed!