How is everybody doing on your resolutions? Me? I didn’t make resolutions. I made affirmations. I find that affirmations are more positive and encourage me towards improving myself rather that reminding me of all the things that I was doing wrong that I resolved not to do again this year. One of my affirmations this year is to live with more gratitude. This concept is harder that I initially expected. But I think in the end, it will be very good for me indeed.

To help along this path of positivity, Eliza came up with an excellent idea of a gratitude book. I had something similar to this in the past, 365 days of gratitude…. which was a little flip book that each day I wrote one thing from the day I was grateful from. The gratitude book takes it a step further. In the morning we each write 10 things we love. In the evening, we write 10 things we are grateful for. The idea is that, by bookending our days this way, it makes the middle part a little sweeter. For me… coca cola, sleep and coffee seem to be a running theme… so given that we are only 3 weeks in, I’m thinking that at the end of the year, or even half way through… might be a good idea for me to go back through and review… Could help me identify some parts of my life that might need some attention… And given that sleep is one of my loves… there are some mornings where the snooze button wins and I don’t have those few moments to do my writing… I just write them at night when I do my gratitudes… no, it’s not helping with the bookending… but still a good practice I believe, and you know what? I’m not going to beat myself up about it either!!

Want to do a gratitude book? Here’s what you’ll need…

1. a notebook

2. a pen

That’s it! Unless you want to get all pinterest-y and decorate the cover. Eliza went old school and covered it with a brown paper sack, just how our mama covered our schoolbooks way back when. On the outside she “doodled” beacons, or quotes, that inspire or describe what we want the year to look like.