Practicing Gratitude

I live for the weekends.  They are my time to re energize.  My time to get out and do the things I love to do.  Usually, some outdoor adventure with my camera in tow.  The weekends are usually full of a lot of little moments, and sometimes big ones that break up the monotony of the week and get me excited again.

But, every once in a while I have a weekend that’s just meh.   For whatever reason, I don’t grab onto those little moments.  Maybe I was tired from the work week, seems to be a big player these days.  Maybe I have big moments planned that don’t happen, so I let that ruin the rest of my weekend.  Whatever the reason, I’m going to try something in hopes of finding the good that did happen….and maybe I won’t be extra grumpy on Monday ;-)

Since this weekend was one of those meh weekends, I’m going to give it a try.  I’m going to pull a proverbial page from the gratitude journal.  I’m going to find three things that happened this weekend that I’m grateful for.

1 - Coyotes playing chase

The coyotes were back this weekend!  And, they entertained with a game of chase.  Like, full on sprinting after one another.  They even gave a few howls when the elk bugled.  I’ve actually gotten more enjoyment out of these coyotes so far during the rut than the elk.  

2 - Four deer

Four young deer, two buck and two doe showed up for the elk party too.  I just happened to look at the hillside behind me and saw them working their way down.  They looked beautiful mixed in with all of the fall grass and shrubs.  Once they got down, they went into a stand of trees and I didn’t give them much more thought.  A few minutes later, they came bounding out right in front of us.  I’ve never seen deer come so close to people.  They had an entire field to go out into to get away.    

3 - Hike to two new lakes 

For as much time as I spend in the Park, it’s hard to believe there are still trails that I haven’t done.  I checked off one of those trails over the weekend.  Most of the trail was in the trees and an uphill grind, but worth it when I reached the lakes.  Seeing lakes with the mountain backdrops never gets old.  And, to top it off, there was a beautiful waterfall.  I’m going to have to climb back up this trail as there is another set of lakes even higher up that I want to checkout.  

Practicing a little gratitude goes a long way.  Looking back, the weekend was pretty good!