We’ve done it. We’ve made it to the last month of 2017. I started this series in April and I haven’t missed a month since I started. Let’s just ignore the fact that I haven’t really posted anything else this year except for these monthly calendars, ok? I’ve decided I’m still calling this a personal win for 2017.

After having your house broken into, your privacy violated. and your things stolen, you would think that there would be no space for gratitude. But for me, there are so many things to be grateful for this month. If you're on my email list, you know the story of what happened, but if you're not: our house was burglarized a few days ago.

October is the month that feels like the start of the holidays to me. I get excited about pumpkin flavored things and want the house to smell like fresh baked pie and cinnamon spice all the time.

Here we are. Hello, September! August was a blur, did you have a busy month too? I never used to reflect on what happened in the past in order to help continue setting goals for the future, but recently I've been doing more of this. I think it is in part due to this planner that I've been using more lately. It was gifted to my by a friend and it took me the better part of this year to figure out how to make it part of my daily workflow, but now I love it.

Our 2nd wedding anniversary is this month and knowing us, we will probably be completely happy celebrating by making sure that neither of us is getting each other a gift and having a low-key dinner somewhere. 

It’s funny because both of us grew up in households that weren’t big into celebrating occasions. Birthdays, anniversaries and even holidays were always, and still are, quite low key. It makes it easy for us and so much less stressful. I’m going to say on behalf of both of us that we’re thankful that we have the same style of non-celebration. But now that I’ve written it out like that, it just makes us seem strange and boring. But at the end of the day we know the love is there! And that’s all that matters, right?

It’s July 1st and the halfway point of the year - did you see that coming?  We have another half year ahead of us and I'm pretty sure, like me, you have many more goals you are looking forward to accomplishing before 2018. 

Sometimes though, I think we spend so much time looking ahead that we forget to reflect on all the good things that have already happened or even forget to live in the present.  I find that the idea of practicing daily gratitude is way to reflect and remind yourself of all the good things that are happening everyday.