First and Last

Today I am grateful for our local writing group and the chance to share and stretch with others interested in the craft of writing. I am also grateful for my marriage to Darcy.

We had our first snowfall overnight. It wasn't much. The grass is white but the roads and sidewalks stayed clear. Yesterday afternoon, I went for my last run before our first snowfall. I run outside through the winter as much as possible, but I still wanted to appreciate clear roads and trails because for the next few months there are no guarantees what the conditions will be. As I ran, I saw a golfer getting in what was probably his last round of the season on the course we live near.

It got me thinking about first and last. And gratitude. As long as one of my first actions of the day is to give focus to gratitude, and I do that by journaling and blogging, my day gets off to a solid start. My perspective starts out positive and clear, and that helps carry me through to my last task before bed. There may be bumps in the road during the day. That's life. But I can set myself up to handle those bumps better if I stay grateful and energized.

One of our activities at writing group last night was to consider the first lines of books. We picked a line we liked from a list of several actual first lines of published work and then began to take our own story from there. It was an interesting activity and I appreciated the opportunity to step beyond my usual writing approach.

The first line of each blog post I do starts out with "Today I am grateful for . . ."  That seems like a good last line for today's post. Today I am  grateful for this day. It's all any of us get.

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