It's a foggy day at the farmette. The mosquitoes nearly carried me off over Grey County, and the humidity is way up, despite a cleansing downpour yesterday afternoon.
Despite all of that, or maybe because of it (it's pretty minimal pain, really), I want to write about gratitude today. I'm grateful for my health. Grateful for my hubby. Grateful for my feline overlords. And grateful for family - we're going later today for our first dinner party at sister Sandy's since March.
There is a bunch of research that says expressing gratitude is actually good for not only your mental, but physical health. It lifts your spirits, shoves away negative thoughts (get thee behind me orange American crazy man), helps develop stress resilience, and makes you feel better about yourself. It actually has been shown to help people with heart problems do much better.
I don't know if you have to do the daily gratitude journalling like some do. Once a week (through this blog) seems to do the trick for me.
Sometimes, it's just a matter of saying thanks to your partner (looking at you Rob) for getting groceries, preparing a scrumptious meal or doing a bang-up job at cutting the grass. We're pretty good at not falling off the gratitude wagon. It's especially important during the pandemic lockdown when we're together even more than previously.
Other times, it's not so easy to be grateful. Calvin-the-middle-feline started growling at Hobbes yesterday, something he NEVER does. Turns out, he had a live mouse in his mouth. With Hobbes and eventually all four others staring and salivating at him, C got a bit defensive.
A merry chase ensued with Rob and I running hither and yon, trying to coax Calvin outdoors with his prize. Now normally, he's the first out - like a shot - but NO, not this time.
Luckily we have three exits from the house, and eventually Rob managed to get the kitty into the yard and hoik the half-dead rodent over the back fence with a shovel. Cripes. Grateful is hardly the feeling I had for the furry boy at the time.
Still. He was only behaving like the cat he is, and actually doing us a favour by getting rid of a pesky nuisance that was pooping in the cupboard under the sink.
I was recently the recipient of gratitude. Neighbour Tania is a voracious reader, like me, and had run out of things to read at the height of the lockdown. The public library was closed, so she reached out to me on Facebook to see if I could help. Absolutely, said I. The Harris-Wilson-Wilson-Harris collection was ready to be lent out. So we set up a pick-up and drop-off system in our mailbox out at the road. Easy peasey.
Over a few weeks, I sent out and got back a bunch of Maisie Dobbs mysteries, the latest Louise Penny (A Better Man), and Becoming, Michelle Obama's excellent autobiography.
I wasn't looking for any kind of payment. That's not what the farmette library's about. But last week, she delivered a lovely blown glass Christmas ornament with a card thanking me for being her COVID-19 library. Nice, eh?
Well, enough about being grateful. The sun's coming out. Time to slather some OFF on to ward off the mosquitoes and get back into the garden. Until next week.