Happy Monday!
I figured I’d add a quick disclaimer on here; I’m not blog posting my gratitude on weekends…I save those for my family. But, I’ll be adding my additional gratitude for those days on Mondays or maybe Fridays so we don’t miss throughout the month. Does that sound fair? Here we go…
Gratitude Prompt Day Two: Describe your happiest memory.
This one is so easy. November 17, 2007. My husband and I had been married a few years at that point, we’d been traveling the world, living our very best lives, and enjoying our time together immensely. I didn’t think that we could be any happier than we already were. We had all we ever wanted, plus so much more, too.
But, that morning was the morning I was officially six days away from starting my period for the month. When we were in Hawaii for my birthday just a month before, my sweet husband asked me to have a baby. I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I gave it some thought. Ultimately, he was born to be a father, and I knew that. So, we decided to go for it. I didn’t think I’d be pregnant, or even that I’d get a positive test result with one of the ‘try this test six days early and find out,’ tests. But, I had to try it out because I could not wait any longer.
I’d bought the test the day before. We both work up at 6 am on a Saturday morning to take the test because we could NOT wait. We had plans to go to Gainesville that afternoon and attend the Gator football game, and I was so excited. I took the test. We sat on our bed, and we waited two minutes. We prayed together. Then, we got up and we went to the bathroom to read the results. I couldn’t do it at the last second. I just couldn’t look at it if it didn’t say what I wanted it to say, so my husband did it for me. His smile told me everything before his words formed, and I knew the test said, “Pregnant,” and we were having a baby. His face. His excitement. The absolute happiness in his smile, his eyes, and his voice; that was the best day of my entire life.
Gratitude Prompt Day Three: What makes you happy to be alive?
My family. What else? That I get to live the life I love with the people I love is everything to me. It’s literally everything. Sometimes, I find myself ready to complain about a bad day or a bad moment, and I am reminded that I get to live this life. I look back and remember when every single thing I have and get to do right now was just a dream in the minds of my husband and I when we were planning our wedding. We wanted to live in a big house in this beautiful neighborhood. We wanted to have a family to make memories with. We wanted to both have the freedom and ability to work from home and create our lives together. We wanted to make our own rules and our own paths, and we get to do that every day. This family of mine. This life of mine. It makes me happy to be alive.
Gratitude Prompt Day Four: List the treasures around your life.
Happy kids. Faith. A husband who still compliments me and calls me pretty and sexy and wants me every single day, who makes me laugh, who is always on my team even when we don’t see eye-to-eye. Friends who love us and who we love so much. Extended families who are so amazing.
I have a lot of treasures, many of them materialistic, but these will always be the ones that meant the most to me.
Tiffany Raiford 