Thankful

Yesterday was Friday, typically a long day in the office for me, with clinic in the morning and afternoon. I also schedule office time before and after patients to catch up on paperwork, results review and reporting, messages and phone calls… This week, I’m also on call, and many colleagues are away on vacation, so there was some heavy cross-coverage. So, it was an especially long, looooong day.

Fast forward to dinnertime. We didn’t sit down to eat family dinner until 8 p.m. Yes, this is when most normal school-aged kids are going to bed, but there we were, sitting around the table saying grace. When we say grace, we hold hands and everyone says what they’re thankful for that day. Gio usually says something like, “I’m thankful we have cute pets and can afford lots of nice things.” Maria usually has already started eating, then we yell at her to stop, and she rebelliously talks with her mouth full, saying something like “I’m thankful for, I don’t know, a lot of things, like markers and paper and friendship bracelets and stuff.” Hubby usually says something poignant and meaningful. And I usually think of some small thing that brightened my day.

Yesterday was tough, though. I couldn’t think of much and I actually can’t remember what I even said. But realizing that it’s the last day of July and I haven’t got a post up all month, I just scrolled through my photos and saw this one I had taken in the office during my lunch break. (I HAVE to take a lunch break, even if it’s only for five minutes!) I liked the color of the sky, and the cool perspective of the clean blue sky and fluffy Bob Ross clouds over the dirty rooftops and massive construction site across the street. I didn’t even realize that there was a soaring seagull in there until just now.

Someday, I hope to be able to paint a sky like this, but in the meantime, I’m thankful that I was able to pause and breathe and BE PRESENT for long enough to appreciate it.

And that is about all I can muster for a July post. Consider it an extended blog vacation…