Thankful Thursday and Positive Talk to Myself

I challenged myself to start keeping a thankfulness journal this year but we were both so sick the first week of January that I never gave it another thought. Then we had a busy week trying to run all our saved up errands and then of course, I had the mystery killer headache and invisible flaming arrow in my eye for a week and that challenge went to the bottom of the trash heap. But I was recently reminded of it by another blogger and thought I'd give it another chance even though the first month of the year is almost over. That's when I realized I really don't know how to keep a thankfulness journal, or even how to write thankfulness. How many times can I say I am thankful for my incredible husband? Then I thought I'd look at a few Thankful Thursday posts from linkups, and I couldn't find any Thankful Thursday linkups. I thought I had several bookmarked, but I only had one and it has ceased. So if you know of a Thankful Thursday linkup, let me know. I'd like to see how other people do this. *edit* Thank you for the link to a new Thankful Thursday. I added it at the bottom of this post.

I thought I'd write about something I'm thankful for every day, but since I was just reminded about this yesterday, that would be a short list. I'll try to do that starting tomorrow though. For this post, I want to tell how being sick for almost a month made me thankful. I'm not thankful I was sick. That is not how I wanted to start the year. But it did make me see things around me that I have been taking for granted.

I am so very thankful for my husband. For the last year, he has driven my mother and me to her doctor appointments, even when I'm sure he would much rather be doing something else. He drives us to the door, waits in parking lots, and picks us up at the door. He gets out wheelchairs, walkers, set up appliances, and put together furniture. All this without complaining, or at least not complaining much. He sorted through mom's house of hoard, packed box after box of stuff and carted them 350 miles to her new home, only to be met with requests for more stuff. This past week, he sat in the emergency room with me while people all around us coughed and hacked, and he listened to doctors toss ideas in the air and then say they have no idea what was wrong with me. Then he brought me home, turned out the lights and made me as comfortable as possible while we waited to see what to do next.

I am thankful for these two furballs who depend on me and support me by showing unconditional love. Even Mia, who has chosen Hubby to be her favorite person, showed she cared by sitting in my lap for two worst days of my headache. She did jump down and run into the kitchen when Hubby started cooking though. Did I mention that Hubby cooked for a week? I don't remember what all he made because I couldn't eat much, but I do remember we ate.

Mia saying "Do you know what time it is????"

I am thankful for the friends who called and asked how I was doing every day and who asked what they could do to help us out. I'm looking forward to paying them back for their kindness or paying it forward.

I am thankful for my mother, who put aside her wishes to give us time to get better. I know how it feels to be dependent on others for food and transportation and I'm sure there are places she would have liked to go in these weeks without doctor appointments.

I am most thankful that I woke up without a headache and eye pain Tuesday morning.

This one is pretty selfish, I admit, but I'm thankful the weather was cold and windy. It made it much easier to want to be home instead of think about what I was missing. Now bring on the nice weather please!

******** Another blogger, MiaIsMine, challenged me to write things we like about ourselves. So many people sabotage themselves with self-criticism, and it's time to turn the tables and build confidence with encouragement. I read this question on another website: "How many friends would you have if you talked to them the same way you talk to yourself?" So I am going to try to detach myself and talk to me as if I were a friend. If writing about being thankful was hard, this was nearing impossible. I couldn't seem to turn off my inner negative voice.

1. I like the way you cut your hair. Changing to a new look can be tough, so hang in there and grow one more layer out before you do anything different.

2. I like the way you held your tongue when he said that B12 and Biotin were the same thing. Save your energy for more important disagreements.

3. I like how you recreated one of mom's old favorites out of some chicken leftovers. I love comfort food.

******** What are you thankful for this week? And I challenge you to tell what you like about yourself too, espcially if your inner voice tends to critique instead of encourage.

Kate reminded me of I Like Thursday at Not Afraid of color, so I will try to link to that too. Lee Anna's challenge question today is: "I love color! what are your favorite colors? Do you wear them or decorate with them? has it changed in the last few years? Is it influenced by the seasons?"

I've never really thought about it before, but my favorite color has changed over the years. It took me a long time to learn about seasonal color analysis and I found out I was an autumn. For years, my mother and mother-in-law bought clothes for me for Christmas and birthdays and they were always pastels. I always felt washed out in pastels and tended to wear bright red when I shopped for myself. The last few years, I've added some bright blues into my fall colors, and lately I've been in love with jewel tones, especially teals. If I were buying fabrics like I used to, you would see more teal in my quilts.

When we bought new furniture for our family room, the furniture we both found comfortable only came in navy blue, so for the last twenty years, my house colors have either been navy blue or something that coordinated with navy blue. When we moved here, I considered buying new furniture, but our furniture still looked brand new, so we kept most of it and I said I would never buy blue furniture again. We were shopping for new recliners for our RV last fall, and wouldn't you know it, when we found one that we could both sit in and would fit in the space, they were navy blue! But let me say here and now, I will never buy blue furniture again!

Linking to:

Thankful Thursday and Fashion Files (I don't know what Fashion Files are though.)

I like Thursday

Thankful Thursday