Turning Grumbles into Gratitude…

I haven’t had a very good few days…
It hasn’t been spectacularly bad or anything, but certain circumstances arose {*ahem children up all night for no apparent good reason & therefore were VERY whingy & prone to tears at the drop of a hat} which put me on the back foot and made me tired and grumbly {or prone to tears at the drop of a hat}.

It’s easy to take two steps back when days like that happen…
To put on grimy grumpy glasses and generally be at odds with the world!
I don’t want that so I thought instead I would give myself an exercise on gratitude this morning…
Because I strongly believe that where the mind goes the heart will follow and I want to change my mindset.
Here goes…

For every grumble I’m feeling this morning I’m going to make myself think of at least two things about that situation that I’m grateful for so that I can change my attitude…

1) Grumble: My husband works away and I miss him. The kids miss him. None of us like the situation very much.

Grateful For:
    **  But it’s NO MORE sleeps until he comes home and we couldn’t be more excited. Counting down the hours not days until his home coming woo hoo.
    **  At least we don’t get an opportunity to take each other for granted.
    **  Sooooo grateful that he wasn’t one of the 100 guys on his crew that were given 1 weeks notice of their redundancy this week. Instead he got given flights through until the end of February… A less than perfect job is much better than no job at all!!!!!!!

2) Grumble:  My washing machine broke & I got soooo very behind in my washing. I feel like this has put me on the back burner for getting the rest of my house in order too. I also really didn’t want to pay $200 to get it fixed!!

Grateful For:
  **  I am grateful that we had the money to get it fixed and that it only really took a few days.
    **  I am extremely grateful that it could be repaired. The cost of a new machine was far more than the cost of repairs.
    **  For that matter I am so lucky to be living in a country where I’m blessed to even have a washing machine.
    **  Lastly the huge pile of washing indicates that my children and I are blessed to have nice clothes. We do not want for anything. And most of the clothes my children wear, have all been gifts.
    **  I’ve just made myself finish off the job this morning so I can breath a happy sigh of relief that I’m finally up to date.

3)  Grumble: I did not get much sleep this weekend. Which meant that I had to miss watching the wedding ceremony of a friend from church because we weren’t feeling well. My girls have also been waking up very early (between 5am and 5.30am) because it’s now light so early and the birds are so noisy.
 
Grateful For:
 **  However, I had a great month of getting sleep prior to that – which means that my girls have both been healthy & not suffering from nightmares. I am thankful for that good month of sleep.
    **  But we have a lot of beautiful trees and bird life around our house.

4) Grumble: I have a rent inspection again on Wednesday and I have absolutely no desire to scrub my house from top to bottom (to the point of having to dust the ceiling fans – seriously what normal person does that every 3 months and why is it on the list!) so that we can pass the inspection.

Grateful For:
   **  We are really lucky to have a beautiful home to live in with very nice & accommodating landlords.
    **  I do like a tidy/clean house, so it will be nice once it’s done.
    **  At least Mr Flutter will be home to help. (Bet that wouldn’t be on his grateful list 😉 ) LOL

5) Grumble: There are stickers and sand all over my house. Two of my pet hates and at the moment they exist in abundance. I dislike stickers because they are hard to remove from the floor & the surfaces & they tend to ruin clothes when they go through the wash. I’m pretty sure it’s obvious why I dislike sand in my house & car.

Grateful For:
  **  Grateful that shoes full of sand in the house means that Summer is coming and we’ve spent more time at the beach & park.
  **  We are really lucky to live so close to the beach.
  **   My children are having a fun childhood.
  **  Stickers all over the house mean that my children are eating a lot of apples & oranges. This can only be a good thing for their health surely.

Turning my grumbles into gratitude just made me feel so much better!!!
I don’t want to deny that the grumbles were/are there. But at least this way I can see that the positives from the situation far out weigh the negatives.

Lastly I’m so grateful for all the lovely people who commented on my post a few days ago. I’ve only had a chance to reply to some so far, but I just wanted to let you know that you really made my day and I really appreciate it!!