The Joy Dare

I'm joining Amy over at the Midnight Cafe on a Joy Dare -- a journey of noticing 1000 gifts by writing down 1000 things I'm thankful for.

The idea originates with Ann Voskamp who wrote One Thousand Gifts. This winter, my Bible study group is going to use the DVD small group study produced by Ann Voskamp, and so I figure this will give me a good jump start on being grateful.

I'll be using the prompts suggested by the Joy Dare that Voskamp created last year to push me to notice things that might go unnoticed. Feel free to join the movement!

As Midnight Cafe said:

Each day has a prompt for 3 gifts. Today is the 23rd. So, I'll play catch-up for a while.

Anybody want to join me? Here's the way I roll: There are no rules. Nobody says you have to do the days in order, that you have to do it every day, that you have to follow the prompts, that you can't forget or have life get in the way. Those things get in the way of gratitude. It's called guilt...or shame...or perfectionism... But, the feeling that you have to do this in a certain way at a certain time or else it doesn't count is a distraction. It gets in the way of actually doing anything. So, do Something. One Thing. Anything. Whenever you can. It's better than No Thing.

January Prompts:
1. 3 Gifts Heard
2. A Gift Inside, Outside, On a Plate
3. Graces You Overheard
4. A Gifts Old, New, Blue
5. Something you're Reading, Making, Seeing
6. One Thing in your Bag, your Fridge, your Heart
7. 3 Graces from People You Love


MY LIST

1) The Girl making up songs while using Mango's sound equipment
2) A new word from The Boy: bye
3) An update on my issue with Medica - in my favor!
4) Warm new slippers (without any holes in them!)
5) A flock of little black birds racing in front of my car in one glorious upward motion
6) Zucchini relish
7) "Let's go BANANAS" song (Fresh Beat Band)
8) iPod on Shuffle in the car
9) A snowplow coming through to make the roads passable
10) My Mukluk boots
11) The Kindle that helps me carve out some me space
12) The Boy's sweatshirt seen as a blur as he raced around Rainbow Play System's showroom this morning
13) Seabiscuit (What fantastic writing!! And what an inspiring story!!)
14) Chocolate - strawberry ice cream made in the VitaMix (with strawberries picked last summer at Dew Fresh in Stanchfield, Minn.) Next up: Chocolate-Peanut Butter ice cream!
15) Animate: Faith by Sparkhouse
16) Bulky, soft yarn
17) Mango juice
18) My chilluns (they are just SO precious to me!)
19) "I love you momma" from The Girl
20) A baby signing "Please"
21) The giving community of Team Yarn