Blog Award- making lemonade out of lemons!

Many Thanks to my new friend Loralee over at life with the Carey gang for nominating me for my first Blog Award. How exciting! See it on the right.

Here are the rules for the blog award:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs that show an attitude of gratitude

3. Link to your nominees within your post

4. Comment on their blogs to let them know they've received this award

5. Share the love and link to this post and the person who nominated you for the award

6. Tell us how you've come to have an attitude of gratitude

Here are my nominees of blogs that show an attitude of gratitude!

1. Nienie dialogue (Though I'm almost positive she's been given this award a million times- she still deserves it! Love love love her inspiring self)
2. C jane enjoy it (Love that she's grateful for just about anything that comes her way, especially a good family and good sweets.)
3. Everyday People (I love when people turn lemons into lemonade in the way Cathy does)
4. Tawna (The cheerbug who is always happy and looking on the bright side of all life's lemons.

5. Bakow Babble (Who is always seeing the lemonade for all the lemons)
6. F is for fischer (Now here is a woman grateful for service)
7. Brea getting fit. (Grateful for her her body and her choices to be fit, and I love that she shares it all with me!)
8. Modern Molly (Always an uplifting message)
9. Bricks (Grateful for the little things in life)
10. Well behaved women rarely make history (Where Kris is currently busy making honey out of all the bees)

Congrats all you great bloggers!

Ironically enough, my lovely husband mentioned to me the other day that I need to be more grateful. In an attempt to be grateful for his frankness, I'm accepting that he's right. Amid the struggles it is easy to become ungrateful, forgetting all that I have been blessed with. Getting this great award has given cause for introspection.

I considered myself unlike most people of the world that are always searching and wanting for the next best thing. But in all my quests I have become that exact person. Imagine that oxymoron. Eight years ago when we bought our home, my husband and I fell in love. Just as it was, with a few expected upgrades to be done in the future. This home was ours to grow our family into. We were excited for upcoming adventures in life. Now with three children I find myself all too grateful for winter to end so I can gently kick the children out of this compressed confined little house.

What I have forgotten is simple. The little things. This is the biggest space I've ever lived in. It works for us. Do we really need to fill up more space with more items that we can live without? No.

So, I'm grateful for my little old house. Grateful for the lessons it has taught me over the years.

I've learned that a bath can be so rejuvenating, even if it is the only option to cleanse oneself.
That busy roads and living on them allow emergency personnel to respond quickly even if it is only two important times out of the 50 million high-speed-ear-drum-bursting-nap-interrupting times they drive by weekly.
I'm grateful for mature trees, in our yard and the neighbors yard, that help to shade our century old weed infestation that must be made rid of each spring.
I'm thankful my children know what it means to walk to school uphill both ways in snow up to their eyeballs, so that when they are my age they can recant their own tall tale.
Lack of central air conditioning encourages my desire to sweat things out and get them done quickly.
That dishes will just continue to pile up even if I despise doing them in the porcelain rather then the new shiny black rectangle Bosch who still resides at Lowe's Home Improvement instead of my house!
I've learned that good hard worked efforts can really look good, pay off, and make one appreciate what they do have-even new talents such as paint scraping and texturing vs being a pianist.
I'm grateful for a warm cozy bed to lay my children in at night, and for the hard working man who provided their beds and the safe cover over their heads.

I'm still in love with my house, I had just forgotten in my attempt to want something bigger and better. Grateful to be staying... and getting a NEW KITCHEN soon!