Day 30: Month of Thankfulness

Day 30: Thankful for my new lease on life with the girls and The Piper after 3 years of #widow life. Everything is a blessing.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) December 1, 2013

Day 29: Month of Thankfulness

Day 29: Thankful for pure puppy joy at the appearance of new squeak toys. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 30, 2013

Day 28: Month of Thankfulness

Day 28: The #widow in me both misses the old Thanksgiving traditions and appreciates the new Thanksgiving traditions. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 30, 2013

Day 27: Month of Thankfulness

Day 27: Thankful for long chats on the phone w/ Dr. Momi. We are each other's touch stones for so very much. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 28, 2013

Day 26: Month of Thankfulness

Day 26: Thankful to have the resources to share blessings with my friends. Drive safe, Holly! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 27, 2013

Day 25: Month of Thankfulness

Day 25: Thankful the kids were so tired they volunteered to go to bed... before 7:30, giving the adults a nice night off! #LoveOurKids
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 26, 2013

Day 24: Month of Thanksgiving

Day 24: Thankful for the smile on our 12 year old's face as she announced she dropped 11 seconds from her 100 freestyle race!
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 25, 2013

Day 23: Month of Thankfulness

Day 23: Thankful for quiet evenings at home in front of a fire, Sanatra playing, cuddled up to my Piper. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 24, 2013

Day 22: Month of Thanksgiving

Day 22: Thankful, & I can't believe I'm gonna type this, for FB updates which allows frienda to know that yes, I am available to come drink.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 23, 2013

Day 21: Month of Thankfulness

Day 21: Thankful to have girlfriends who enjoy nice dinners out. #GirlsNightOut #MonthOfThanksgiving
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 22, 2013

Day 20: Month of Thankfulness

Day 20: Thankful for the nights when Big Papa is out so tuck-in can go on for 45 minutes instead of the normal 10ish! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 21, 2013

Day 19: Month of Thankfulness

Day 19: Thankful to have family come visit for Christmas and my 40th birthday this year. Yeah Dr. Momi! #GonnaRockMy40s #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 20, 2013

Take All the Time You Need

Day 18: Month of Thankfulness

Day 18: Thankful for Dollar Store science projects to grow crystals on the kitchen counter with the kids. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 19, 2013

Day 17: Month of Thankfulness

Day 17: Thankful for my furry puppies even if one smells like a giant Frito and the other screams like a pissed off 2 year old girl.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 18, 2013

Day 16: Month of Thankfulness

Day 16: Thankful to have Dr. Mommy to call when family health issues arise. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 17, 2013

Day 15: Month of Thankfulness

Day 15: Thankful to have the 1st time I've "lied" to our girls be during a board game that encourages it & have her be SHOCKED I can do it!
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 16, 2013

Day 14: Month of Thankfulness

Day 14: Thankful for whispered questions"Can I go hug Karen?" outside the bedroom door at 6 in the morning. The answer is yes. Always yes.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 15, 2013

Day 13: Month of Thankfulness

Day 13: Thankful to be graduated from premarital counseling. One of the better investments I was smart enough to make. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 14, 2013

Day 12: Month of Thankfulness

Day 12: Thankful to dance around the livingroom w/ the Piper to old blues while the kids look on eating tacos. We mix genres in this house.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 13, 2013

Day 11: Month of Thankfulness

Day 11: I'm thankful for wake-up make-up nookie. Yeah. I went there. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 12, 2013

Day 10: Month of Thankfulness

Day 10: Thankful to have a man that will sit down and figure shit out with me. #LoveMyPiper
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 11, 2013

Day 9: Month of Thankfulness

Day 9: Thankful to come home covered with one of the best scents in the world... camp/bon fire! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 10, 2013

Day 8: Month of Thankfulness

Day 8: I'm thankful for the sound of small running feet and muffled giggles in the morning as I lay in bed. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 9, 2013

Day 7: Month of Thankfulness

Ya know what? Fuck you. I'm thankful I can pick up the tab for my kids no matter what they need or want. The day I can't, I'll go get a job.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 7, 2013

Day 6: Why I Write a Month of Thankfulness

Though I don't spend time complaining on Facebook or Twitter very much (Unless it's funny. Funny complaining gets a free pass.) I started doing the Month of Thankfulness three years ago in 2011. It was a little over a year after Steve died and about three months after my father died. And while I had started to work my way out of the widow fog earlier that summer, my father's death sent me spiraling right back down. I don't know when the toughest time of my grieving was but I can say that after dad died, it got scary for me real fast.

The Month of Thankfulness was a way to get my head out of the circling thoughts that I failed my husband which was why he was dead. Thoughts that life was never going to be worthwhile again and the best I could hope for was that I might be useful at least once more before I, myself, died. I hoped that if I had to think about one positive thing a day, really concentrate on it, for an entire month, I could change the tide in my thoughts. That I might find hope again.

I look back at that first year and I couldn't even manage to think of something every day. Frequently I didn't remember to post. In my zombie haze days would go by without me registering that time had passed. But I also have vivid memories of sitting on the couch, looking around the room, hoping that my eyes might hit on something that would trigger a thankful thought. In the end, I only managed eleven out of thirty days. And I had a nice long string of those days, too. Those posts did work, in a fashion. It got me geared up for Christmas, New Year's Eve, and my birthday the following month. Gave me some momentum to head into the holidays with a bit more verve than I would have otherwise.

The second year I was nervously dating the Piper with his two young girls. I spent a lot of time bouncing between feelings of elation and excitement to feeling like a adulterous whore for cheating on my dead husband. It was a wide spread of emotions that kept me wondering about my sanity in a completely normal-in-an-abnormal-situation way. It was as close to normal as I'd felt since Steve died and it refreshed me, and drained me, in ways I hadn't expected. But I managed to post every day. When I look at those posts, I know what overwhelming whatever I was looking at each particular day. Cause even then, maybe especially then, a day at a time was all I could manage.

This is my third year of posting the Moth of Thankfulness. I'm only a few days in but I can already see a new pattern emerging. I tend to post well after midnight, when the kids are in bed and the Piper is brushing his teeth. The time where I have that rare quiet moment to myself before the pillow whispered I-Love-you's and the bedside light gets turned out. That's the moment I have to look back on my day and think "This is what I want to remember. This is what I don't want to forget." My posts this year are the stupid little daily interactions that occur in a life. Those silly little every day moments that I haven't had since Steve died. That I never thought I'd have again. The sunbeam slipping through the clouds to brighten up the world for a split second before disappearing again. How I revel in these moments.

So I'm going to be that annoying woman who posts what she's thankful about each day. Cause, you see, they all boil down to the same thing:

Day 6: I'm thankful to have a normal life. To, once again, have little things each day that joyfully grab my attention. #WidowThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 6, 2013

Day 5: Month of Thankfulness

Day 5: I'm thankful to have friends who call me at 11 pm to come clean up a dead mouse in their cabnet across town. It's nice to be needed
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 6, 2013

Day 4: Month of Thankfulness

Day 4: I'm thankful to have two new Packer football buddies, even if their ages combined is only half my age. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 5, 2013

Day 3: Month of Thankfulness

Day 3: I am thankful for holding hands while driving with singing children in the back seat. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 4, 2013

Day 2: Month of Thankfulness

Day 2: I am thankful I have neighbors who loan me shovels to break. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 3, 2013

Day 1: Month of Thankfulness

Day 1: I'm thankful for health insurance, which I will once again have starting in January. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 2, 2013