30-day gratitude challenge officially begins March 1st, and I just loaded up the prep call recording and workbook to the classroom. Give it a gander.

I don’t have an inspiring story today. In truth I am struggling to feel happiness and gratitude despite all my best efforts today. The death of my close loved one and the impending memorial service with family has opened some very old wounds and while I want to honor the person who has left my life, I am dreading the event. I wrote my personal notes this morning with an open heart and full of gratitude and then the day and my mood spiraled. I went back to The Mr. Thank you Project Book and read the section about writing a note to yourself. While I haven’t completed this task yet because I have a feeling it will be a deeply emotional experience I shouldn’t have at the office or in my car in front of my son’s school, your words touched me and it is something that I am committed to doing. “…allow all of you to be loved, honored and respected as you deserve to be.” Thank you John for your vulnerability, honesty and wisdom. For this gift, I feel immense gratitude.

Crazy, blood pumping morning over here at Gratitude homestead in Blue ridge TX. I was up early making a fire in the wood burning stove, and needed to clear the old ashes out first. We usually the ash on our mulch pile because it’s typically damp, and mixes well for future garden compost. We just got a new shipment of wood chips, so I thought I’d start them in the decomposing process with the extra ash. Well…as soon as I tossed it, I realized, the metal container I was using felt a little “warm”. “Hmmm…maybe there were some embers in there.” I thought. But I was still mentally deprived of coffee and had a young child waiting to start the fire with me inside, so I continued on with my morning. An hour later, when the boys went out to feed the animals, they sprinted back in to yell, “FIRE.” I ran outside to see my little “ash drop” consuming half the mulch pile in a blaze. We tried to turn on the hose, but they were frozen solid from the cold front and nothing came out. We scrambled to find buckets of any kind and ran back and forth from the house to the mulch pile. It was like a non-stop CrossFit workout where your lively hood depends on it. After 30 min, the fire went out and we were exhausted. Gratefully my wife took it with positive energy and said, “well, that’ll help the decomposing process now won’t it.” It reminded her of a Little House on the Prairie episode when Ma had to put out a fire when Pa wasn’t home. I sat with my stupidity all day, and gave a little speech at family dinner tonight, beginning with, “this was all my fault.” I owned it, and thanked everyone for stepping into gear. I made a point to teach how that little decision, with no mal intent, caused a cascade of problems that the whole family had to deal with. Just like how we sin in our lives. Some time we make a decision that is seemingly small, and insignificant, but if left unchecked can turn into an all consuming fire that destroys everything we’ve worked so hard for. It could have been worse. If the wind was in the opposite direction direction, it would have pushed the flame towards our house, it could have made it onto our neighbors land, someone could have been injured. But none of that happened, and for that I can be grateful.