What Are You Thankful For?

“Thank you is the best prayer that anyone can say…” – Alice Walker

 

It’s the only one I ever say.  Just before I turn the bedside lamp off at midnight every night, I write at least 5 things in my gratitude journal that I am grateful for.

Last Tuesday evening’s list lead with two items that are often repeated in my journal as well as out loud on any given day.

1. Thank you for the strong healthy body and mind that are mine.
2. Thank you for my mother’s continued excellent health.

I am thankful that at 65, I am healthy and strong as is my 81 year-old mother.  Once a week on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, I pick her up around 9 or 10 a.m., and we’re off. 

My gift to her and, truth be told, to me is a day of doing whatever she wants to do, going wherever she wants to go.  I know for sure, that we will:

1. Shop. The stores and malls may vary, but she is a consummate ‘Mallee’ who loves to go ‘saleing’.
2. Eat & Drink.  We’ll stop for lunch and a beer or two at whatever restaurant strikes her fancy.
1. China Buffet for a Tsing Tao beer and  all you can eat, and boy can she eat.  At 5’2” and size 8 you’d never know.
2. Jim ‘n’ Nicks for Taco Tuesdays’ fried catfish tacos and Modelo or Acapulco for Fajitas and Dos Equis.
3. Shop some more – Birmingham has a plethora of large and small malls and then there are the vintage stores and Salvation Army stores, etc.
4. Party. We invariable stop for a happy hour which includes bar food or appetizer and something good and wet.
1. Bonefish grill is a favorite for Whiskey n Soda tall and an order or two of Bang-Bang Shrimp.
2. Dodiyo’s for Wine or a Stella Artois and pizzette and hummus.
3. Brio’s for a Peroni, bread and olive oil and shrimp cocktail.
5. Shop.  We always stop at Publix grocery store up the block from her house for miscellaneous grocery items on the way home.  She buys a six pack and I a bottle of wine to take home.

We’ll unload our treasures from the car, turn on a rerun of some show we both like and sit and sip and chat a bit before I go home. 

What are you Thankful for?