The Second Time This Week

Today I am grateful for money with which to buy groceries and cleaning supplies. I am also grateful for a more calm, less frustrating approach to a work task I have currently.

After a midweek post this week about Door Closings, there was a second door that we were sad to see close yesterday. Our local Target store, five minutes from our house, closed the doors for good last night. We made one last stop there yesterday, along with many others who seemed to be doing the same thing.

We won’t go without the items we used to buy at this store, we’ll just have to shop elsewhere. It’s more a sentimental thing. It opened early in 2000, the year that we moved to town. Eighteen years of convenience and quality. Life goes on.

The Empty Shelves I wrote about a couple weeks ago were even fewer and emptier yesterday. This picture says it all:

We took our Target Store for granted most of the time, appreciating it but assuming it would always be there. Am I doing that with people and circumstances in my life? Taking them for granted? There are far worse things to lose than the convenience of a nearby Target. 

An important component of living gratefully is not only noticing what we have, but noticing the void we would have without that person and how they support us, that hobby or positive feelings it brings, that item or the way it helps.  

For the second time this week, the door of a local business closed permanently and I didn't want it to close. Today, I will look at some of the many gratitudes in my life and consider what my day would be like without that source of gratitude. I will foster the grateful appreciation today. I won't wait. We never know when another door may close.