Hello, today is Friday, December 19th, and this is day seven of the 12 days of Christmas. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is Hello from the Band. Alrighty, to begin, I have a confession. I recorded a completely different podcast for today. I did. A completely different one. We're talking, music, editing, the whole nine yards. Already done. And I sat down at my computer and I went to go load it and I thought, mm, nope, not feeling it today. So I scrapped the entire thing. And we're starting over. Instead of what I had already planned and recorded, we're going to do something else. Today, instead of learning, we're going to do some growing. We're going to have a day of gratitude. Now, if you woke up today and you're not feeling particularly grateful, I'm going to give you five seconds to get your grumbles out. Ready? Go. I don't want to be grateful. Do you feel better? Me too. Now let me tell you, I've been feeling particularly ungrateful lately. You see, I had a doctor's appointment this week, and I didn't want to go to the doctor's, but I needed to. Do you ever have things like that that you know you need to do? That it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing, but you don't actually want to do it. So you kind of grumble and mumble, and I don't want to the entire way there. That was me going to the doctors this week. So to help turn my mood around, we are going to share things that we're grateful for. Here's the thing about gratitude: it can be difficult sometimes. So I'm going to turn on some music. I'm going to help set the mood. Are we ready? Alright, so now that we've got our music going, if you're having a bad day and you just think, I don't want to be grateful today, or if you think to yourself, I don't know that I have a lot to be grateful for. I've had those days too. My grandma used to have a phrase. She used to say, If I live long enough, this too shall pass. If she had that kind of optimism with all the stuff that she'd been through, I think we can do it too. So here's how it's gonna work today. It's really simple. I'm going to ask three questions. I'll give you my answers, then I'll give you some time to answer yourself, if that makes sense. Are we ready? Here's the first question. Name a person you are grateful for and why. I'll go first. I'm grateful for my best friend. Her name's Beth, and she lives in Texas, really far away. And I really miss her this time of year. All the time. I just think, oh, I wish we lived close together. I wish I could see her every day, and I get kind of sad about it. But then I have to think, at least I have a best friend, and I get to call her every day and Marco Polo with her from my van. Because if we were pioneers, I wouldn't even get to see her like ever and we'd probably die of dysentery. So that's my answer. I'm grateful for my best friend because she's always there and she always listens. Now it's your turn. Name a person you are grateful for and why. Alright, are we ready? Let's move on to the next one. The next question is: describe something in nature that you appreciate. Here's my answer. I love those tiny little birds that are in parking lots. It's called a common finch. And anywhere that I have ever traveled has had a common finch, some version of a finch, and I love them. They're just the cutest little brown birds, and I don't know what it is about them. I just like them. So now it's your turn. Describe something in nature that you appreciate. If you need to pause, go ahead and pause the podcast. And now our final question. Share a skill or a strength or a talent that you have that you're grateful for. What's something that you are good at that you're grateful that you are able to do? I am grateful for running. Am I the fastest? Oh, absolutely not. But I've run a lot of races in my life. And every time I lace up my sneakers and run across that finish line, I learn something new about myself. So what about you? What's something that you do that you're grateful that you can do? Man, you guys sure are great. To end the podcast, I'm going to share two quotes with you: a silly one and a serious one. The silly one is from singer Willie Nilsen, and he says, When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. The other is kind of a little bit more serious. It's from an author named Melody Beattie, and she said, Gratitude turns what we have into enough. I sure hope that you guys have enough this holiday season. I'll see you tomorrow. I'm Mimi Votts, and this has been Hello from the Van