Never count your life by the leaves that fall

Textures by Kim Klassen; Nested, 50% Multiply and 1402 Magic, 100% Soft Light
Light burning around the photo’s edges

Count the gardens by the flowers, never by the leaves that fall.
Count your life by the smiles and not the tears that roll.
~Unknown

Attitude and gratitude. Two very hard virtues to embrace, aren’t they? How easily we ditch the good and only focus on things in our lives that don’t go how we want them to go. How easily we count the tears instead of the smiles. Maybe the tears are coming from health issues; maybe they’re from relationships; maybe they’re caused by life-altering events. It’s all to easy to become consumed with how awful everything seems in our corner of the world. Let’s face it…we’re all a bit narcissistic at heart…thinking the world revolves only around us and what would make us the happiest…or saddest.

This past year has been a roller coaster of smiles and tears; Blessings and worry; Optimism and destroyed dreams. As I sit here looking out the window at yet another blustery, rainy day, it would be very easy to sink into an abyss of depression….focusing only on the things in life that are not perfect. Heck, there’s a lot that’s not even close to perfect. And Peanut has shared her cold with me…which means Twix will have one shortly. Perfect.

But mixed in with those tears, worry and destroyed dreams are these things:

1. Twix came into our lives. And while it was sooner than expected and she faced a few health concerns, she is now a thriving 8-month-old blessing.

2. Peanut is growing into a little girl with a quirky sense of humor and attitude to match. It’s a roller coaster of emotions with her, but I’m sure it’s hard for such a small package to sort out the mixed up bag of happy, sad, angry, worried and independent feelings.

3. The Investigator, Peanut, Twix, Entrepreneur and I all live together. Now this may seem like both a blessing and a curse (and sometimes it is), but through it all Entrepreneur and I have been fortunate to be able to help The Investigator get back on her feet and offer much-needed child care and support. The payoff has been that we’ve been able to be an integral part of our grandbabykins lives during these formative months and years.

4. The Investigator has a job she loves and is making a positive difference in the lives of children who need protection and families that need help.

5. The Floridian is doing well in her new job and keeps in touch with us via phone and social media quite regularly. Which is a total reversal from her college days! 🙂 She is living the Florida dream and (most days) loving it.

5. Financially we’re holding our own and are not in danger of becoming homeless! We have food in the kitchen, a solid roof over our heads, warm beds in which to sleep and enough to make our lives comfortable. The investment portfolio takes a beating every now and then with our up and down economy, but is still in the black.

I know the rain will continue to fall and there will continue to be more storms on the horizon. Life will continue to throw curve balls and tears will fall. But, at the risk of sounding Pollyanna-ish, I hope we can focus on the smiles amidst it all, knowing that nothing in life is perfect. We just have to do the best we can with what we’ve been given and understand that God will sort it out in the end.

Linking up with Texture Tuesday, Texture Twist and Life Through the Lens