{"id":2387,"date":"2020-11-27T06:50:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T11:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=2387"},"modified":"2020-11-28T14:12:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T19:12:52","slug":"week-324-keep-counting-35-days-of-gratitude-starts-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=2387","title":{"rendered":"Week #324 &#8211; Keep Counting!  (35 Days of Gratitude Starts Now!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"625\" height=\"483\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?resize=625%2C483&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2389\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?resize=1024%2C791&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?resize=300%2C232&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?resize=768%2C593&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?resize=624%2C482&amp;ssl=1 624w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?w=1650&amp;ssl=1 1650w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020.jpg?w=1250&amp;ssl=1 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Week #324 &#8211; Keep Counting!  (35 Days of Gratitude Starts Now!)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Greetings Tribe &#8212; and Happy Holidays!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I almost didn&#8217;t want to do this one this year&#8230;in fact, that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m posting late (it&#8217;s now Saturday).  This is a year that&#8217;s had its way with us. We&#8217;re all sick of playing games, all sick of pretending it&#8217;s some test, all sick of making the most of it, or waiting for it to JUST GO AWAY ALREADY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It reminds me of the first year after Rob died&#8230;it felt like if we just made it through, if we just got it right and grieved the right way, it would somehow all be over.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It isn&#8217;t.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I, like you, am sick of it. I&#8217;m tired. I&#8217;m worn out. I&#8217;m sad, and angry, and confused, and some days exhausted from laying awake at night wondering if and how and when this might end.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The answer is&#8230;we don&#8217;t know. Which leaves us with one option:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What do we know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that&#8217;s where we&#8217;re at this season. Back to April mentality&#8230;what do we know? \u00a0In some ways we know a lot more: we know our mail is safe and that we don&#8217;t need to burn our work clothes each day or strip down to nothing when we get back to the house. We&#8217;ve narrowed down which activities seem most dangerous: funerals, weddings, parties, celebrations&#8230;all manner of large gatherings in tight spaces.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, holidays. Ugh&#8230;holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2020 has led us right to where we didn&#8217;t want to be&#8230;at the end of the year, looking to pull close together with those we love most, but being asked to stay apart.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year, it might be hard to feel grateful.  And at times, it might feel downright silly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which is exactly why we shouldn&#8217;t stop. There are 35 days left in the year. If you were counting your blessings in November, keep going. If not, now is a great time to start.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanksgiving may be &#8220;over&#8221;&#8230;but there is no reason to let the gratitude stop. &nbsp;November is known as &#8220;Gratitude Month&#8221;&#8230;but for the past few years I&#8217;ve proposed we keep it going.  This year should be no different&#8230;and it may even be more important. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so, I wanted to repeat my challenge once again this year&#8230;to you and to myself: to continue giving thanks into December and <strong>give ourselves the gift of gratitude this holiday season!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Your Happyness Challenge for the weeks ahead: KEEP COUNTING! \u00a0<\/strong>Amid the stress and uncertainty of the season ahead&#8230;give YOURSELF the gift of gratitude! \u00a0You can print out a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/35DOG-2020-1.pdf\">PDF<\/a> of the calendar above&#8230;or check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=2381\">Week #322<\/a> for ten fun &#8220;Gratitude Game&#8221; ideas for how to keep track.  However you do it, come New Year&#8217;s Eve &#8212;\u00a0you&#8217;ll have 35 reminders to celebrate all that is going right and well in your life! \u00a0And I will too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(This idea was born out of my own lack of gratitude four years ago. &nbsp;You can read about it on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/?p=1092\">Week #115<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Spread Happyness &#8212;&nbsp;Share Freely! &nbsp;And start counting your blessings today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>11\/27\/20 by Grace Church<br>\u00a9 Grace Church<br>grace@spreadhappyness.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Week #324 &#8211; Keep Counting! (35 Days of Gratitude Starts Now!) Greetings Tribe &#8212; and Happy Holidays! I almost didn&#8217;t want to do this one this year&#8230;in fact, that&#8217;s why I&#8217;m posting late (it&#8217;s now Saturday). This is a year that&#8217;s had its way with us. We&#8217;re all sick of playing games, all sick of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2387"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2395,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2387\/revisions\/2395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadhappyness.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}