Someone did that

Sometimes I eat food my daughter grew herself. Sometimes I don't know who grew my food, but someone did.

Someone made my dishes, either by hand, or designed an original and others knew how to produce copies.

Someone chose and procured colanders, pots, pans, utensils. Some I found; some were gifts.

Someone (sometimes it's me) prepares food and sets it out.

Someone cleans up and puts those special things back where they go.

The more sweetness and gratitude involved in all of that, the better all the world is, but especially my own world is sweeter and better.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sarah S.

Subscriptions, and gratitude

Dear subscribers:

Thank you for your patience while Vlad is building a mailing program around us. The new format is beautiful and full of links to good things. I'm very grateful to Mr. Gurdiga for his clever and very generous help.

Some days, some of us got doubles, or posts repeated. I'm sorry for the confusion, but glad for the abundance!

I had wanted to quote part of something I wrote about abundance, but found that
1) the whole thing was required for it to make sense,
2) I had posted it before, in 2013, and
3) the original post had comments and links to two things new that day, about abundance and gratitude.

Please enjoy: Gratitude and Abundance

photo by Sandra Dodd

Honest and true

If you offer service with the hope of reward or praise or indebtedness, it will create resentment in you and in those who received the service. If you offer service without sending the bill, anything others say or do will be an honest expression of gratitude, not the last-minute submission of the bare minimum payment for services rendered.

A "thank you" that's scripted is just noise. A "thank you" you didn't expect is true communication.

Serving Others as a Gift
photo by Rippy Dusseldorp (or someone with her camera)

Receiving Light by mail...

Some of you should be seeing an improved mailing. Our replacement for the longtime "feedburner" was not as clean or as pretty as Just Add Light and Stir needs. Having heard what I liked, wanted, and wished for, Vlad Gurdiga has created his own subscription system.

One hundred subscribers have been moved to the new program as a test. I missed this year's anniversary (September 2), but Just Add Light and Stir is over 11 years old now! Thank you for reading, and I hope that soon every subscriber will have a more beautiful e-mail to open each day.

Without Vlad's generous help, much of our long-collected unschooling information would be unavailable. I'm very grateful.

Gratitude
photo by Tara Joe Farrell

Gratitude and joy

If you don't feel you will be happy, then you won't be. The largest part of happiness has to do with gratitude and joy. Either of those can be snuffed out by the recitation of ills.

Discussion of the Gratitude page from The Big Book of Unschooling
photo by Gail Higgins
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A step toward joy

Some of the things that help people be confidently in the moment, feeling satisfied and content are:

• Breathing
  
• Gratitude
  
• Happy thoughts
  
• Fondness
  
• Acceptance

At first it might be relief and not joy, but as relief is a step away from fear, more relief will be progress toward joy.

The Big Book of Unschooling, page 275 (or 318)
photo by Ester Siroky
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Limitations

Sometimes limitations are physical. Sometimes they have to do with resources, weather, health, fears and random happenstance.

There are no guarantees, but appreciation and gratitude are better than any of their opposites.

Above and beyond limitations; underneath and through limitations
photo by Karen James
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Abundance and gratitude

"If it's not one thing, it's another."

People usually say that of problems or frustrations. But what about gourds, and little girls, and music, and humor?

If you practice finding abundance, if it's not one thing, it will be another.

Abundance
photo by Cátia Maciel

Pure and joyful

When you hear or read something pure and joyful, maybe just bask in it, or add to it. Please try to think and make a choice, though, about whether to respond or to be quietly grateful that someone is courageous enough to express joy in a dangerously negative world.

Gratitude and choices
photo by Jihong Tang
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Soul, spirit, mind and heart

Gratitude is good for the soul, for the spirit, for the mind, for the heart.

Negativity and discouragement spiral down a hole.

Gratitude and choices
photo by Karen James
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Are we? Am I?

Anna Black wrote:

Now I think... Is my child happy, healthy, connected? Are we moving towards partnership? Are we having fun right now, at this moment? Am I treating my children as well or better as I would treat my husband or my friend? If yes, great. If not, change, make a different choice.

—Anna Black

Gratitude and choices
photo by Ester Siroky
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Step up and see

The same life can be seen from many different angles.
The same situation can be seen while holding one's breath
and being furious,
or while seeing the alternatives
and finding ways to be grateful,
no matter how small,
because on one small bit of gratitude,
one can step up and see another one,
and another.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sukayna

Big gift, little effort

A good project for this season: Maybe send a thank-you note.
Not to me.

Send a thank-you note to someone who has helped you this year, or maybe deliver one by hand to the nicest person at your grocery store, or a neighbor who smiles and waves.

Maybe someone has been nice to you online, and you could send an e-mail or a facebook message.


SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Mary Lewis
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Proud

Sometimes I "feel proud" of something my child has done, but it's too much ownership and I back down.

If I think of it as happy relief that I didn't prevent that success or achievement, then I can be a little proud of myself, and impressed with my offspring.

Maybe the best way I've found is to feel it as gratitude that I lived long enough to be able to see successes in my now-grown children. Gratitude is good. Joy is good.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd
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What's in there?

Half-empty cups are substantially different from half-full cups. It's not just theoretical holy water in those cups. The half-empty cups hold a concoction of frustration and need and irritation. The half-full cups contain joy and hope and gratitude.

page 213 of The Big Book of Unschooling (or page 185, of the first edition)
photo by Karen James
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For one moment, or ten...

This post is from April 2013. It was called "Happy Monkey," the first time. It's a good time for a re-run.

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I went to the grocery store alone. It was crowded and people were moving fast, but were calm and smiling. I saw three young children. Their relatives were being very sweet to all of them. In other families, older kids were being helpful.

On the way to my van, a man who was 35 or 40 was happily riding the back of his shopping cart down the hill toward his car, with the wind blowing his hair.

On the way home, I thought of the cutest thing I had heard. A young mom had been holding a toddler, and he said something and touched her mouth. She said, "Monkey?"

He indicated that she was right.

"You're a monkey?"

"Happy," he said.

"You're a happy monkey? Happy monkey!"

And he was. He was very happy.

So easily, we can tip two degrees over into the sorrows and fears of the world. Without trying, we can fall into a pool of despair and take our friends and families down with us.

Not everyone can be happy today, but if your child is whole and well, for one moment or for ten do your part to help him be as happy a monkey as he can be.

SandraDodd.com/gratitude/health
photo by Julie D
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Being glad

Sometimes when my kids were little I would express a positive thought aloud. "I'm glad we can afford to go out to lunch sometimes," or "I'm glad we have a car and enough gasoline to go to the mountains!" Or "I'm glad our cats are nice."

And don't do it to train them. Do it because it's true. It will be uplifting, in that moment to kind of put a blessing on it.

from the January 2013 chat on gratitude
photo by Amber Ivey

A wonderful, surprising abundance

Megan Valnes, when her daughter was younger, wrote:

Today, while making my older daughter's bed, I was reflecting on the very act itself. The girls have a bunk bed and Lila's is on the top, so I have to climb up there and she has about 20 stuffed animals--it's what I would have used to think of as a pain. Instead of feeling overworked and underpaid as I made her bed, I found myself taking extra care to make her bed very nicely because I know how good it feels to sleep in a freshly made bed. I tucked the sheets and blankets in tight and cleaned off any food crumbs. Thinking of my sweet girl, I made the bed as perfectly as I thought she would like. Her stuffed animals are placed in their special places and her bed looks very cozy and inviting. Even if she never mentions it (which I doubt she will), I feel good knowing she will appreciate the gesture.

Is this the abundance everyone talks about? This fullness of heart that I no longer think of making beds as a chore, but as an act of service and gratitude? The feeling was such a wonderful surprise!

—Megan Valnes

SandraDodd.com/service
photo by Cass Kotrba

The joys that come

We can't control or contain the world, but we can appreciate the joys that come.

Gratitude
photo by Sandra Dodd

Knowledge / Acknowledge

In your home are homey things, and some were gifts, or were found, or inherited. In your kitchen, something was made by hand, or found in an attic, maybe. There might be a favorite bowl, or a cup with a story. We have one special spoon. I like the hand towels. I got tea for my birthday.

Who showed you how to scramble eggs? When did you learn to bake? What do you think about how to arrange your refrigerator?

Is there flexibility in there? Are there more reasons to laugh than to fear?

Be open to happy memories and gratitude for your knowledge and equipment.

Gratitude for Common, Simple, Homey Things
photo by Holly Dodd (in the reflection) of Sandra (behind the spoon)
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P.S. If anything above brought up sad or stressful memories, consider rearranging the cabinet that contains the voices in your head. Here's help: SandraDodd.com/voices