Favourite Thing of the Day: Laura's Gratitude Journal Cover

My absolutely favourite thing right now is Cheri's pre-teen daughter Laura's journal cover, which Laura sent to me to show me the new gratitude journal she's started.

When the world says "give up",
hope whispers "try it one more time".

I started Grace in Small Things back in October 2008, a social network based on gratitude journalling, and it has turned out to be an incredible gift to my life. At the time, my cup had been less than half full to nearly empty for 35 years, and I was running out of the wherewithal to keep going the way I was.

I had always resisted the idea of starting a gratitude journal, because I lumped that kind of thing in with goopy, saccharine crap peddled in the growing self-help movement of the 80s and 90s. I can now, without a doubt, say that I was wrong, because my life is nothing like what it was four years ago. I've gone from an unemployed alcoholic who hates almost everything but kittens to a self-employed teetotaller who genuinely likes this being alive gig.

Laura's journal cover makes me grin every time I look at it, and I hope she keeps it up, because if gratitude keeps her heart open the way it has mine, her life will be incredible.

What's got you smiling today?

Grace in Small Things: Sunday Edition #107

1. I am up at Waskesiu in Prince Albert National Park, and, if you can fangirl a place, I am fangirling here.
2. My nephew just turned one, and seeing the summer dirt ground into his toes is just killing me with the preciousness.
3. My mother made her family-famous ribs today, and I ate them.
4. I get to watch the evening light slant through a northern pine forest.
5. The process of buying our first home hasn't killed us yet, and we're not going to let it, even though every step feels like slow, fingernail-removing torture.

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

Grace in Small Things: Sunday Edition #106

1. Really great signs expressing sadness over a lack of poutine
2. That we took our first, tentative step toward home ownership
3. Blue cheese butter on steak. BLUE CHEESE BUTTER.
4. My new favourite shoe, the Josef Seibel Ingrid
5. That I leave for the BlogHer '12 conference in New York on Wednesday!

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.