When I started March of Gratitude I knew I would begin with my wife and end with my daughter, Raylen. I remember getting on a plane after Nicki and I were really serious and, for the first time, I felt some fear about what would happen if it crashed. I’d been on dozens of flights […]
When I was a freshman in high school I had the opportunity to travel to Mexico to build houses for families in need. It was a needed opportunity for a young kid to learn two key lessons: My life is pretty great compared to most people on the planet. Other countries and cultures are interesting, […]
Man, I am grateful for bread. These are my first loaves baked in St Louis! A few years ago I watched Michael Pollan’s #Cooked on Netflix and caught the sourdough bug. My first loaf was successful enough that I haven’t stopped searching for the perfect loaf ever since. I’ve opened the oven to some flat, […]
My phone’s GPS is faulty. I’ll try to navigate to a meeting and it will work about 40% of the time… Usually, it won’t lock on my position or will bounce around from tower to tower as I travel, showing that I’m sometimes a quarter of a mile away from where I really am. Most […]
Today I am grateful for clean water to drink, cook with, and (most importantly) to make coffee! It’s something we tend to take for granted…until you don’t have it. You don’t have to live in a third world country to experience poor drinking water conditions, either. Water-borne illnesses affect as many as 30 million people […]
March of Gratitude day 26 – I’m grateful for our budget. Arguably the best thing that my wife and I did before we got married was to learn how to properly manage our finances. My financial life was a mess and, although my wife had much better habits, neither of us really knew how to […]
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford March of Gratitude day 25 – I’m grateful for #Learning. I’m grateful for learning: Something new Something old That I’m right That I’m wrong That it’s not always worth it to be”right” That failure is a fast track to more learning […]
March of Gratitude Day 24: I am grateful for perspective. Today I saw a news story about a family who lost everything in a fire, attended a fundraiser for someone who has lymphoma for the 5th time, read about the millions affected in Mozambique, and was reminded that I’ve never really had to go without […]
Next Chapter! Today I am grateful for new beginnings, the next chapter, open doors, chances to begin anew, springs of hope, a freshly cleaned slate… whatever you want to call it. Today is the first day of our new life in St Louis. I have no idea where this road is taking us, but I’m […]
Today is the last day that we are full-time residents in Milwaukee. It is a bittersweet ending to a dynamic chapter in our lives. Without a doubt, Milwaukee will be held in a special place in our hearts. We found so much in our nearly 5 years here: our marriage, our friendship, our health, our […]
Today I am grateful for thrift stores and all the various online marketplaces to sell ‘stuff.’ Although it’s always timely to purge, moving is as good a time to reflect on what things are worthy of keeping as you transition to the next place/step/chapter. We started doing this way before the move (#MarieKondo) but have […]
Today is day 20 of March of Gratitude and I am grateful for disappointment. Disappointment tells me when I really had my heart set on something. It tells me when I gave more effort on a project or a goal. It tells me that I’ve been thinking about the desired outcome more than others. It […]
This is my sister-in-law getting her hair cut before it falls out from the chemo treatments. On the surface, this photo looks like a moment of incredible vulnerability. Anyone going through chemotherapy knows this moment is coming, and sharing it is invariably a vulnerable thing to do in an already fragile time. But I don’t […]
Day 18 of March of Gratitude I’m thankful for the invention of corrugated cardboard. Admittedly, this one is a little outside the box… I’ve shared that we are moving to another city, which means a lot of packing and a lot of cardboard boxes. I can’t say I’ve ever thought about cardboard this much before, […]
Today I’m grateful for the sun, clouds, trees, birds, and all the greenery trying to pop out. Granted it’s St Patrick’s Day, so I definitely see a lot of Kelly green out there, but I’m also glad to see things like grass and leaf buds and plants (oh my!). It’s not quite Spring, but it […]
Third Space Brewery – Oh how I will miss you. Ray Oldenburg coined the term “Third Space” (or third place) in his book The Great Good Place and deemed it as: “…a space where people meet to unwind, discuss and talk about things that matter to them, their neighborhood and their community, where they can […]
