This is the second week of my “Create The Day” Series.

How will you create your day, your week, your year? The power is in our own hands to create a life we love. This week I’d like to create with gratitude and joy (I hope I can).

This weeks theme is Gratitude

This morning I woke up feeling grateful for the soft bed and fluffy downy comforter, a little too grateful maybe. I wanted to stay in bed. The mornings are the most difficult time for me because I’m never quite ready to greet the new day.

My husband is a morning person and gets up at 5:00 AM. He’s usually quiet at first, reading and meditating for awhile, and then begins his morning routine. By 7:00 the music drifts up from his basement office, and by 7:45 he’s banging around in the kitchen just outside the bedroom door. I wish I were a morning person, it’s such a lovely routine he has.

I’m a night person. I get inspired at night and I have trouble falling asleep. I often stay up until 2:00 AM. Even if I try to go to bed earlier, it’s useless before midnight. Even when I’ve taken pills or herbs to make myself fall asleep before midnight, I still don’t wake up refreshed in the morning.

I have to get out of bed and start the day, so I try to think of something I’m grateful for. I’m grateful for coffee! I got up early for many years because of my children, helping them get ready for school. I am so grateful for my children, they are the light of my life, but now they don’t need me like they used to.

I used to have a job that I had to get up at 4 or 5 AM for. I loved that job, but I’m grateful that I’m not still doing it at this time in my life. You see, I’ve spent many years doing what needed to be done, taking care of whatever needed to be taken care of, and that’s what got me up in the morning. I’m grateful for that, but it’s time to move on.

Now, I want to create my days with intention. It’s not easy though, having been an urgent responder for so many years, to take back control and focus in a new direction. In some ways, when your children grow up and move on there’s a lot to clean up from the past. There has to be a way to organize, store, and save the treasures as well as throw out the trash and give away the leftovers. Teenagers and young adults are not always receptive to these changes, but it has to be done if I’m going to move on in my own life.

I’m a person of movement and I’m grateful that I can still move. For me, life is about change and growth and discovering all the beauty and goodness there is to be grateful for. I’m grateful for the past, but I’m more grateful that I still have time to do new things, to meet new people and to create in new ways. Maybe I should write this on my ceiling so I can read it every morning to motivate myself out of bed.