Do you make GRATITUDE lists??  Maybe in your heart, on paper, or just through sharing them with a friend.  I think it’s such a GOOD THING.

*This post is a little long, but I hope you’ll grab a cuppa tea and take time to read it…read it over 2 or 3 days if you need to…I promise the rest of the posts this week will be “short and sweet”!!  🙂

Taking time to really stop, visit your heart, and just listen to it…hear the things you are thankful for ~ Being grateful can have such positive and profound effects on our life.  I have the 2012 “A Better You” calendar book and love one of the inspirational quotes found inside:  “Grateful people tend to be more optimistic, a characteristic that boosts the immune system.”  I just love that!  I’m all about finding more optimism in life…pushing out the negativity.  And, if you stop to think about it, it really is something we should all try.  Let’s give it a shot!!  What if we focused on the things we are grateful for, take time to write out a gratitude list, let the positive thoughts have more room in our mind than the negative ones.  What if we do this??  What do you think the outcome will be?  I’ve got a pretty good idea.  *I’m thankful for walks along a beach I have loved since I was a little girl…for the unexpected starfish dotted along the shore…wanting to try to give them their LIFE back and stopping to toss them back into the ocean….hoping, believing that it is not too late.

Let’s look for the BEAUTY in every day…it’s there.  Have you looked for it today?  What did you see?  I would love to know.  Tulips are my favorite flower, and I love to see them popping up in unexpected places.  And, if you have been reading my blog for awhile you’ve probably seen where I mention how I always have good intentions of planting those bulbs so I can have a sweet surprise as spring begins to bloom…and, ah…well, I usually don’t get around to doing that.  But, I so love buying a pretty pot of tulips at the store and snapping pictures of them as I see them popping up in gardens all around.  I spotted these at the store the other week and have been truly amazed at how they have BLOOMED.  I will share a picture later of how they looked at first {like what you see above} along with what they ended up looking like.  I don’t think I have ever seen any tulips GROW this much!! Their stems have gotten so tall…almost makes me giggle when I pass by the kitchen and take a peek at them.  AMAZING!!  And, oh, my goodness, they truly make me smile!  Last night I had just read a beautiful comment to one of my blog posts and sat there thinking about how grateful I was for such sweet words, for that person to take the time to read what I shared from my heart, and then, take more time to write to let me know they enjoyed it.  I just sat there and said “Thank you”.  And, then, I thought about these tulips and said, “Thank you, God for letting me see their growth, allowing me to witness it…helping me to take time to NOTICE it.”  It’s kind of like the growth I find in myself, and I think it is oh, so good to take time to recognize it and feel it.

And, don’t you think that our lives just might be more COLORFUL if we focus on the positive…on those things we are grateful for?  I do!! I was chatting with a sweet friend a while back, and I listened as she shared with me about how stressed she was feeling.  I feel this way many times; we all do.  I just listened to her, and my heart ached for her because I knew she was feeling overwhelmed.  I just started sharing some things I try to do when I am feeling this way.  We talked about how there is so much sadness and negativity often seen in the news and how it can really make you feel so down.  I told her that yes, I keep up on the happenings of the world but have really tried to limit myself to watching and listening to too much of that.  If there are things in your life like this that seem to drown out the positive things, I encourage you to limit them or at least move them to a place in your heart where you can deal with them better…or, not at all.  What good does all that negativity do?  What if we focused on something else instead?  Perhaps if your heart is feeling full of negative thoughts and sadness, then, that is the best time to take a few moments…or many…and just write down the things in your life that are positive.  Or, maybe you can benefit from just sitting in a cozy chair, closing your eyes, and envisioning all those things.  Some days there may be so many things to flood your mind, but on those days when you just feel yourself struggling so, really push yourself to think of the COLORFUL, happy things in your life.  Dig deep, sista gal…they are there!!  And, I’m not just telling you to do “fluffy, feel good things”…I do these things…I “work with myself” in this way…I AM working with myself in this way…today, tomorrow, and each day following.   The last two years were really stressful, and last year especially was…just lots of LIFE things going on at different times.  I promise you there were days when I felt I just didn’t have the strength to deal with it all, and for me praying was what saw me through…growing in my faith with God.  I grew alot through all of that, and more and more each day I am realizing that focusing on GRATITUDE is part of this journey.  I’m working on this…wanna work with me??  C’mon, we can do this…we’ve “soooo got this”, girlfriend!!  *I’m thankful for finding COLOR throughout my life…it makes me happy…makes me smile…and, encourages my creativity.

And, at the end of the day, if you forgot to GIVE THANKS…don’t beat yourself up about it.  Tomorrow is a new day.  I just heard a quote yesterday and can’t think right now where I saw it or heard it, but it went like this:  “Each day is the opportunity to BEGIN AGAIN”.  I really like this!!  Think about those words, let them sink in…each day is a new beginning…you have the opportunity to create a new outcome, make changes, choose the best path, and so on.  What you choose to do with that day is up to you.  Oh, it can be so very hard to not look back at yesterday and think of all the things we didn’t accomplish or how we wish we had done things differently.  But, isn’t that really a waste of time??  Think about it…we cannot go back and redo that day, but we can move on to TODAY and give it our best…Each day we have the opportunity to write a new story {I’m going to create artwork around this, and I’ll share it with  you when I do!!}.  What will you write about?  Would someone want to read your story if you shared it?  Yes, now we’re getting somewhere!! It’s not that we just close our eyes and hearts to the negative stuff…no, I’m not saying that…I am saying let’s look for the good things, focus on the blessings in our lives…the things we are grateful for…because if we do can’t we deal with the negative stuff a whole lot better?!!

A beautiful and sweet friend that is such a blessing in my life recently gave me the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp…I am sure you have heard of it and maybe even read it.  I am not very far along in it because I have not been getting to read as much as I would like to lately since I’ve been working hard to get new artwork and such done.  I have been thinking about gratitude for some time now…even before my friend surprised me with this book.  And, I had looked at this book many times, even had it in my Amazon cart, and for some reason waited to buy it.  It was much more special and meaningful to receive it as a gift from her…knew there was a reason I did not ever purchase it.  🙂  For the past few days I just felt as though I was struggling with accomplishing my goals and “to do list” for each day with my business things which then runs into my personal goals, and I have really been thinking that I want to start writing a gratitude list because I think it will help me to deal with feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or distraught over “this or that” at different times.  So, last night I picked up this beautiful book and began reading, and it was as though the pages I read before going to bed were written just for me…just the thing I needed to read.  The words were just the push I needed to go ahead and start that list of gratitude.  And, as I sat there reading, I thought about how I wanted to share this with you.  I want to share what I am doing to live a more positive, gratitude filled life.  I truly know in my heart that it will show in my art, in my daily activities, and it will surely help me to feel more calm when the difficult times come up because LIFE HAPPENS…when we are not ready and not looking for it.  This is just something that could help us COPE with all of that.  No, it doesn’t “fix” everything or keep negative things from happening, but it is just like exercise for our body…it’s exercise for our heart and mind.  The more I walk on the beach or treadmill, the better my whole body, especially my back (yes, I have a sweet little herniated disc that tries to be sassy lots of times!!) feels better and works better.  Couldn’t the same be true for my heart and mind?  If I focus on the positive, gratitude filled things I will be able to worry less, give in to stress less, and just know that I will be able to accomplish so much more.  And, then, at the end of the day, I can sigh and say, “Girl, job well done!! Let’s do it again tomorrow!!”…and, just like Tucker…I will probably even rest better!!

I am so very thankful for YOU…for you taking time to read this, to share your sweet comments with me, and for letting me into a little spot in your life.  YOU are part of my gratitude list, for sure!!

Now, I’m off to dig around for some SUNSHINE because the sunshine state is a bit cloudy today!  But, I’m determined I’m gonna find it somewhere!!  How about you??  🙂

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Thanks so much for visiting my blog!2012 Copyright Ann-Margaret’s/Ann-Margaret’s Visions