It's that time of year again. How does it go from July on the beach to Halloween, to Thanksgiving and Christmas carols in one blink of an eye? My mother always told me the older you get the faster time goes by. When you are ten years old that sounds like one big fat lie. A year is 1/1oth of my life so NOT so quickly does it go by. But now a year is 1/48th of my life and it truly is a flash. My 82 year old Dad scoffs at me with his math. Point taken...
So what on earth can we be thankful for? It is a drizzly rainy day today, it took me 90 minutes to travel 26 miles this morning in the DC metro area, and I left at 6:15 am, thinking I'd give myself plenty of time to get to my Arlington meeting. The positive spin is "I was early for me meeting and it was really successful!"
I am fighting a cold and have consumed massive amounts of Airborne to keep it at bay. Not sure who is winning the fight, and positive spin, "Look out I am on the loose!"
In coaching school at the renown Georgetown University's Leadership Coaching Certification Program, they taught us a concept that on any given topic you can choose to spin it down, finding the worst in a situation, or spin it up, finding the gold. There certainly are times when I find it hard to see rainbows and sunshine, but I do try to find the positive spin. I sort of just popped out of a phase where I have been feeling the change of season and the end of daylight savings sluggishness. I am reminded of the condition SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder) and the concept of the "Happy Light" that helps perk up and augment the shorter days. My office is my finished basement, and while my daughter Lexie and friend Danielle have made it darling, it is dark, and I was spending a lot of time alone writing. Another friend told me to go sit outside in the sun and MAN what a difference that made! So the moral of the story is that we need sunlight, and vitamin D! If you are feeling unusually down and unmotivated, there is likely a fixable reason.
Don't settle for hibernation if you don't have to!
Christmas season...the neighborhood is already brimming with Christmas With the Crank's competition. Ugh, it just all feels like work to me some times. AND the positive spin is - oh how lovely the house looks when it is decorated! My baby Kate will be five years old three days after Christmas, she LOVES this season, it is ALL about her, and what is there not to love about that?
This year on Facebook I saw friends counting down the days with "things I am thankful for" lists which are inspiring really. So here is my Top Ten Thankful's for 2011:
- Faith
- Family
- Friends
- Health
- Grandma's and Grandpa's for Kate
- Social Media for connecting me with long-time friends and new superstars
- Red wine (it's just so good)
- Work that I love
- The smell of Pumpkin Spice (had to throw something fluffy in there)
- A lifetime of development ahead.
