Today

1.  I am feeling very grateful for those who fight all over the world for our freedom.

2.  The desire to cook has completely left my body.  Not that it was that strong to begin with, but I really just feel like leaving bowls of cereal out for everyone and telling them to fend for themselves.  Alas, since my family will frown upon this after a while, I will continue to cook.  Dang this whole needing to eat business.

3.  It has yet to snow here this fall, for which I am very grateful, but I found myself thinking about snow and how much I used to love to go out and play in the snow when I was little.  I lived in Colorado until I was 13 and there were quite a few blizzards during the winters of my youth.  I remember one in particular when I was about 7 years old.  The year was 1982 and the blizzard was a big one.  My brother and I got all dressed up from head to toe in our snow gear and headed out into the peak of the storm to play in our yard.  It was incredibly windy and incredibly snowy and we loved every minute of it.  When the storm passed, there were snow drifts clear up the side of our house and the snow was as deep as our fence in some places.  If we thought playing in the snow during the storm was fun, playing in the snow afterwards was even better!  Oh the snow tunnels we dug.  It was a child's snowy wonderland.  I thought about this storm for several reasons.  First I was thinking about how fun it was to be a child and how much I loved playing in the snow, and about the fact that my view of winter is so much different now then it was when I was a child and how I need to find a bit more of that winter joy that I once felt.  I also thought about how it is such a pain to get kids all dressed up to go out into the snow and how I really need to be a better mom about my willingness to do this for my kids.  Note to self:  Kids love to play in the snow.  Finally, I thought about a mug that my Dad had that year.  It was a white mug and on the side of it was the phrase, "1982, a very good year."  I remember my Dad agreeing with that statement.  I have no idea what was going on in my parent's adult world at that time, but I remember talking about that mug and about the fact that it was going to be a good year.  Back to the here and now, I haven't really felt like this past year has been super great.  It hasn't been particularly bad, but it hasn't been great and a lot of that probably has to do with my attitude.  So, I have decided that I am going to take a lesson from that mug of my youth and declare that 2012 is going to be a very good year.  And if I declare it, than it shall be.