I'm Grateful For...

I walked into the living room carrying a small leather bound book and my favorite pen. I settled onto the couch next to my husband Steven and opened the book to the next blank page.

“What's that?” Steven asked as he looked at the book I was holding in my hands.

“My Grateful Book.” I said as propped my feet up on the coffee table, tapped the pen against my teeth and stared at the blank page in front of me. “I try to think of at least one thing I'm grateful for each day and write it down.”

“So it's a diary.” Steven said with a shrug.

“It's nothing like a diary.” I said shaking my head at his total lack of knowledge on grateful journaling. “A diary has all your thoughts, good and bad.” I said. “I don't want to dwell on the negatives of my day. I thought if I only wrote what I was grateful for it would stop me from thinking about the things that annoy me.”

“So it's a happy diary.” he corrected himself.

“Stop calling it a diary!” Now I was getting annoyed. At the rate he was going he sure wasn't going to be mentioned in my grateful book that day.

“I'm sorry.” he said. “But don't you think you're being a little touchy about the name of a book?”

“No.” I said. “Because when you call it a diary I feel like I'm fourteen years old complaining about my parents and how unfair it was growing up in a house with seven kids in it!”

“You kept a diary when you were little?” Steven asked. “How come I've never seen it?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I threw them out years ago.”

“Seriously?” Now Steven seemed surprised. “I thought those were things you were suppose to keep forever.”

“I would have but when I reread them I had no idea what I was talking about.” Seeing Steven's look of confusion I felt the need to explain myself further. “ I was always afraid my Mom would find my diary and read it, so I abbreviated everything to trick her.” I had to laugh just thinking about it.

“Did it work?” he asked.

“It worked so well I tricked myself. With sentences like, I met up today with RK and PC.”

“Who were they?” Steven asked.

“I have no idea. I even went through my middle school yearbook and couldn't find anyone with those initials.” I cried. “Then I had a lot of days that all I'd say was I'll-never-forget-this day, with either a smiley face or frowny face next to it.”I had to laugh again. “I'm sure at the time I was writing it I was sure I'd never forget.” I looked at Steven and shrugged my shoulders. “But I did. So I threw them out.”

“That's too bad, they would have been fun to read.” He looked back at the book in my hand. “I assume what you're writing about today won't be in code.”

“Nope. I've learned my lesson with that! Now everything is completely spelled out. I'll be able to go back and look at these, years from now, and remember all the little things I was grateful for.”

Steven laughed. “So what are you grateful for today?”

I smiled. “I was thinking about how grateful I was that the boys finally found where the dishwasher was instead of stacking their dirty dishes in the sink.” I thought about that one for a moment, “Or I could write down that I'm grateful the newspaper delivery person didn't throw the morning paper under my car today!” I looked over at Steven to see which one he liked.

“That doesn't sound like your grateful.” Steven said. “It sounds like your complaining!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just because you start a sentence with, I'm grateful for... and then add something you'd normally complain about doesn’t make it a happy event.” he said.

“Of course it does!” I said.

But then the more I thought about it I realized he was right. I got up from the couch and began walking to our bedroom.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Because of you I now have a lot of pages to rip out of this book and a ton of rewriting to do if I'm going to make this grateful book work.”

I could hear Steven call, “You're welcome.” as I closed the bedroom door.