as I sit here watching the fish swim happily about in their clean aquarium (thanks to my son-in-law) I looked over and saw my daughter and grandson on the electronic picture frame…

reminded me of just a few of things that I have to be grateful for… one was the amazing experience of visiting Chihuly Garden and Glass at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle this summer… and getting to meet Dale Chihuly in person…

January from my Chihuly 2014 calendar that I found just last week…

for many years George and I would make gifts to give to family and friends… this year I decided to do that again…

I spent time thinking of some of the things I am grateful for, as well as the people who fill my life… made a list of all those and put them in alphabetical order and produced a bookmark with the word gratitude and all of the things/people…

front of bookmark…

then I went through the pictures I took at Chihuly Garden and Glass and chose some for the back side of the bookmarks… I chose enough so that every bookmark had a different picture on it, making it unique, like the people who would receive it…

back side of one of the bookmarks I still have…

took the pictures and list to Staples where I had an exceptional customer service experience… the young woman helped me get three of the gratitude pieces onto a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet and then printed the pictures on the back… she also cut each one, laminated it and cut that as well… she took great care as she worked and I was very impressed with the final product…

today I was touched to see that two of my colleagues have them in a place where they can be seen all the time as they work at their desks… one has hers right on her screen so it reminds her of gratitude every time she looks at her computer… the other is on a ledge at eye level where another can see it whenever she looks up…

gratitude is such a simple thing that we tend to forget, or rush past…

wishing you the opportunity to remember the things you are grateful for, and take a moment to savour them…