Somebody gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting my first Sunday back about counting your blessings, so lately, I've been trying to count my blessings more. I'm certainly grateful for my family and my friends, my home, the Gospel, and all that, but I'm trying to recognize smaller blessings that I don't typically think of as things I'm thankful for.
So here are the Top 10 things that make me happy and are, therefore, blessings:
Call me crazy, but I love winter. It's my favorite season. One of my favorite things in the whole, wide world is walking outside when it's freezing cold and just inhaling all that cold, cold air. The kind that goes through your nose, makes your heart skip a beat, freezes your lungs and takes your breath away, and gives you the chills. I just love, love, love the smell of freezing cold air.
Just so you don't think I'm completely crazy, I also love summer mornings. I went on a bike ride a couple of weeks ago and just rode out on some country roads by our house. It was so beautiful. This is the "I've-lived-in-Indiana-too-long" side of me coming out, but the cornfields looked so pretty with the sun rising just above them showing off their golden tips and the dew sparkling in the fresh morning sunlight. This sounds really corny (no pun intended), but I stopped and just stared for a few minutes and just felt so incredibly happy.
This is also going to sound really cheesy, but I love sitting in the middle of the woods during the day and just listening. I remember at Girls Camp having our solo time where we could just go off by ourselves, read the letter that our parents had written us, and just think. I always loved it--mostly because I was anxious to read what wonderful things my parents had written about me (just kidding). But seriously, I remember during my last year of Girls Camp sitting in the deepest part of the woods I was allowed to go to and just listening. The sun was trying to break through the tops of the trees producing beautiful golden rays of sunlight across the creek where I was sitting. I could hear the leaves rustling, the woodpeckers digging into the trees, all the other birds chirping and flying around, and little squirrels and chipmunks running up and down trees and all over the ground. I just remember being in complete awe and wondering how people could live their life believing that our loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ don't exist.
I love driving through the country on summer nights and watching the fireflies. When it's really dark and you look out over the fields, they're everywhere! It's like your own little fireworks show. I feel so sad when I meet people at school who have never seen a lightning bug. I spent the summer nights of my childhood catching those! What do people in other parts of the world do for fun if they don't have lightning bugs?!
I love the smell of a campfire. I don't enjoy smelling like a campfire, but I enjoy the smell of the actual campfire...if that makes sense. I don't know why. Maybe it's because campfires just smell really good to me or maybe it's because of this memory that I have of us sitting around a campfire: We used to spend every Spring Break at the beach with my grandparents and cousins. One time when I was little, the little kids kept climbing over the neighbor's rope and playing in their yard when they weren't supposed to. It was a tradition that we tell scary stories around the fire, so on the night that we did, my dad said he had a good story to tell. He told this horrifying story about "The Breather" who would go around and take little children who would cross the rope into the neighbor's yard when they weren't supposed to. They called him "The Breather" because he made a wheezing sound when he breathed. I didn't even cross the rope and I was terrified by this story! I remember waking up in the middle of the night and almost wetting myself because I heard this wheezy breathing in the distance. It turns out it was just Alec who had developed a nasty croup cough. I also found out, years later, that my dad had made up that whole story. Of course, I was too stupid to realize that at the time.
Something else I love (it's another smelly one...well, not smelly...you know what I mean) is the after-rain smell that's not the nasty wormy smell. You know what I mean? There's the nasty "all-the-worms-are-out-because-it-just-rained-and-now-it-smells-really-really-bad" smell and then there's the "oh-it-just-rained-and-it-smells-like-fresh-water-and-lots-of-other-good-smelling-things" smell. I prefer the latter.
One of my other favorite things in the world is the way my body feels after a hard workout. I always hate the workout because, well, it's hard, but the after-feeling is so worth it. I remember doing a brutal run in Forest Park for cross country practice one time in high school. I hated it. It was so hard, but I felt awesome afterwards. I felt so accomplished, which is awesome, but the best part was the way my body felt. After workouts like that one, everything in your body hurts like crazy, but yet so good all at the same time. I can't adequately describe how awesome it feels, but if you've ever experienced it, you know.
Along with this, I love feeling sore the next day. Not miserably sore, but comfortably sore. Yeah, that exists. To me, at least.
I love to read. I really haven't read a lot of books because I almost never have time with school and stuff, but while I've been home, I've been reading for fun (yeah, who knows the last time I was able to do that?) and it's been great. I forgot how much I love it. I love when I get so into the book that I wish it were real (like Harry Potter--what wouldn't I give to go to Hogwarts!!) and I love it when things get tense and I find myself clutching my book for dear life speed reading like crazy and my eyes just going out of control over the page. I also love when I get so involved in a book that I confuse events from the book with things that happened in my life.
Going back to winter again, I love curling up in my blankets at night and sleeping with my window cracked even when it's -20 outside. I especially love this on Saturday mornings when it's so cold in my bedroom that I don't want to get out of bed, so I just lay there all curled up in my bed and think about anything.
And more winter...I love waking up to a fresh blanket of snow. I love walking outside in the morning as the sun is starting to rise and you can see all the tiny snowflakes reflecting the sunlight. I also love standing outside and just listening to the absolute silence that comes with a fresh morning snow. Sometimes I stand outside for several minutes and I have this weird feeling like my life is perfect and complete. I can't really explain it.
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