by Hope
I hope no one is reading this. I hope you have stepped away from your computer, your phone, your tablet and are caught up with your friends and family. Eating a ton of food. Watching football games. Laughing and rough housing with your family or friend’s kids. That is what today is about.
I am so grateful to be here in Texas with my 4 siblings, 2 of my kids and my parents. I am grateful that my mom mostly still remembers who we are (my mom has Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinsons so we know our time with her is destined to be different these days.) It is kind of funny, and I’m grateful that we can all laugh, when she calls my dad her father, or my sister her friend or just plain forgets who one of my three brothers is to her. (This summer she told one of my twin’s, her grandson, that he was her favorite nephew and she meant it!) I am grateful that I am in a better financial place then I have been in years. I am grateful for work I truly love, clients who challenge me and trust me and (mostly) pay me.
There is just so much I am grateful for. And not just today but every day.
Things We Take for Granted
And thinking about these facts, that so many of us take for granted, makes me even more grateful:
- According to the FCC, nearly 1/4 of people in rural areas do not have access to high speed internet. So if you are reading this on your computer or tablet in the comfort of your home, using your home based internet. You are blessed.
- According to No Kid Hungry, more than 11 million kids in the US live in “food insecure” homes. That’s essentially 1 in 7 kids live in hunger.
- The Washington Post reports on the dismal numbers regarding homeless in the US, “more than 550,000 Americans experience homelessness on a typical night, and 1.4 million will spend some time in a shelter in a given year.”
And these are just the big ones. There are lots of other circumstances that can make you realize just how much you have to be grateful for. So today, put it away, and focus on your “haves,” not your “have nots.”
And in the comments…after you come back from this break…tell me your favorite food that you feasted on today. And something that you are especially grateful for!
Hope is a digital marketing manager and foster/adoptive single mom to five kids. She has run her own consulting company for over 15 years and took a leap of faith returning to the corporate world in 2021 to a job and team she loves! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally mastered the balance between family first and wise financial decisions.
So, what do you think ?