Our Thankful Tree

So, I realize that I have a problem staying thankful.  I tend to focus on what I don't have, or what I think is going wrong, or how things never seem to work for me.  It makes me a less than happy person.  I have tried various things in the past to keep me more thankful.  That keeps me focusing more on what I do have, on what I have been blessed with, than on what I don't have.  I have written about my Happy Book and I try to write weekly on this blog a list of things I am thankful for, although I have done fairly poorly at that lately. 

I decided I needed to be thankful with Gloria, and Tony when he is here.  So, I made a Thankful Tree.  It is hanging in our entryway.  I decided that since it is close to Thanksgiving we might as well practice being thankful, and making note of what we are thankful for.  So I went to my local teaching supply store and bought a bulletin board set (yes, I could have spent the time cutting out my own tree and leaves, but I figured my time was better spent doing other things, and so I spent money instead) and extra leaves.  Gloria "helped" me punch them out and hang them up (good thing I bought extra leaves and don't mind a bit of tape holding things together), and we have a thankful tree.  Then we spent some time at the kitchen table telling each other what/who we are thankful for and we wrote those things on the leaves. Our leaves are hanging on our tree and every few days I will sit down with Gloria and write a few more thankful things and make our tree have more leaves.  Hopefully by Thanksgiving our tree will be full of leaves.  I won't even complain if I have to go buy more leaves.