I believe in gratitude all year long, but it’s nice that on Thanksgiving we all have the opportunity to take time out to take stock and count our blessings and acknowledge our appreciation. I remember the hymm from vacation bible school back when I was a youngster. “Count your blessings one by one and you’ll be surprised by what the Lord has done.” Religious or not, the general consensus of any belief or religion is to focus on the blessings and not the problems. There’s a hymm Great Is Thy Faithfulness, which was one of my dad’s favorite hymms. There’s a line, “Morning by morning new mercies I see…” and over time I have adapted the lines, Great is my thankfulness!
Great is my thankfulness!
Morning by morning new blessings I see.”

Every day I am grateful to get up and ride. As I get older and hear from friends and family about various aches, pains and afflictions, I am happy that I can get out of bed and get myself dressed and ready to ride on. I’m joyous about it.

I’m grateful I have such wonderful memories of my family. In the face of losing my dad in 2019 I can say unequivically that he has left me with such a catalog of memories and they are all funny, or silly and almost always put a smile on my face even if a moment later I’m thinking about how much I miss him and suddenly I’m bawling, but I’m grateful for the 57 years we had together. I’m always greedy for more, however, I’m coming to terms with the reality that grieving is as much a part of life as breathing. There’s a reason the Greeks have the comedy/tragedy faces side by side.

There’s gratitude in the routines because the beauty of the mundane is not something to take lightly. Look up synonyms for the word “mundane” and you’ll see banal, day-to-day, everyday, humdrum and normal! When things are just as they are, that’s not bad. I mean if you want some sort of change in your life, that’s something else entirely, but I’m talking about the day-to-day tasks. Normal. No flats, no weird squeaks or clinks, no fires or atmospheric systems to keep me from riding, no drama, just pedal onwards. That’s sort of a metaphor. I love those moments of balance on a bike when I realize I’ve learned how to balance and my cadence is perfect and I feel like the star ballerina with the New York City Ballet. Normal is good.

This will sound cheesy, but I’m grateful for you right now reading this blog post. I love blogging and making videos and putting it out there. I struggle with wanting to do more but feeling too exhausted to do more but then someone Likes a post or makes a comment and I’m thrilled. I appreciate that there’s someone out there spending a moment with me.

I’m grateful for the journey. I’m grateful to get out there and ride! The ride anywhere at any time, always focuses my attention on what’s most important. The present.

Thank you for reading. I wish your a good day doing whatever and eating whatever. Thanks for being here. I am grateful. 😊