Grateful Day 3

   Day 3 of the #365Grateful Project here had me thinking about my love. I am not yet focusing on trying to master my camera, just trying to capture moments that will give me great memories of things I am thankful for at the end of the year. I hope to get to camera skills later!

  Grateful my soldier is home!

Thinking about my day and gratitude had me thinking about my love. He does so much to support his family and serve his country. I am grateful for all he does. It isn’t always easy. Lets face it, it is very often not easy at all, but he does it with such core strength and surety that he does inspire. He is brilliant and brave and compassionate. I am thankful for these boots that help him walk this path. Clearly their time is about over and they need to be replaced. I am grateful mostly these days though that they are home. Home in my room on the floor where I sometimes trip on them. I am grateful to all those soldiers whose boots are not home, and all those wives and children who wish so badly that those could be home right now. Soldiers are the ones who serve but their families sacrifice so much to follow those boots, to support them. Looking back over my husbands 15 years in and thinking about the first time he went to Iraq and out of a large group of friends, only one other couple is still together. For that reason and a million others I am grateful to see these boots home and my husband safe and so very loved.

Day 4 — The Pond

We are soon moving from this post, this state, and I don’t know if I will ever get to see this pond after that point. It has been one of the most loved spots on Fort Meade for my family with the large park near it, the bridges, the walking path, and the nature. We have seen geese and swans and ducks here, we have even seen a turtle laying eggs. We have seen so many happy smiles on our children’s faces and we have seen sunsets that take our breath away. This photo isn’t one of the amazing sun sets, but it was a quiet moment spent being thankful for the beauty of the white blanket snow, the geese and the ducks slipping on the ice and swimming in the cold water. It was the pink sky and clean crisp air that made the moment memorable. It is the little things, or maybe all the little things in the big wide shot. It was poetry I have not the words for. But I have a photo now, and one I will love when I look back on it at the end of the year when I am in a far different place than this.