Everyone is feeling the pinch of higher gas prices and how that is effecting everything else. We have a radio station here where the DJ will say “ If it’s free it’s for me” and we have adopted that in our home. I rephrase it by calling it simple pleasures, which just happens to be free. The saying “count your blessing”s is one of many cliches that just happens to be dead on.

Here is just a list from my standpoint. Can you list 5, 10, even 20 ?

-I woke up this morning- a lot of people did not
-I woke up and I can see, smell, taste, touch and hear all the beauties around me
-I am loved by family and friends
-I am surrounded by a flock of birds that are colorful and who can sing multitudes of tunes just for me
-I can laugh at myself
-Even though I am disabled- I can start off the day happy and realize there are people worse off than me
-I still have one parent that is living
-I have the most amazing in laws any wife could possible want
-I have a husband who has stuck by me through thick and thin( a lot of thin) for over 20 years
-I have a son who amazes me daily ( though some days I feel like Home Simpson and he Bart)
-I can still feel the emotions that make us humans
-I am not the smartest but I’m sure as heck not the dullest tool in the shed
-I can pick up a book and lose myself for hours, in it imagining all sorts of adventures
-I can dance and sing to the music to my heart’s content and get a nice work out in my own living room

I can go on. We need to step back and think of the simple pleasures in our lives. It is something we should never forget, and most importantly cherish. Do I do this daily? No, I have to say honestly I do not. However, I do try. All one has to do is turn on the news or read the newspaper, if that does not do it, nothing well. Appreciate what you have- it is not here forever.