During Thanksgiving dinner, as we ate a fantastic meal and shared what we were thankful for, Nora reminded me of the Thankful Trees that we used to make.
Thankful Trees
Thankful Trees were part of the 30 Days of Thanks practice I had before life got busy with entrepreneurship and four kids. Every day, starting November 1st through the 30th, we each wrote something we were thankful for on a leaf and taped it on the wall over a tree trunk I had cut out of a brown paper grocery sack. It was a reverse fall: we started with an empty tree and filled it with leaves by the end of the month.
I loved the visualization of how many things we had to be thankful for and the moments each evening at dinner as the kids decided what one thing they would write down, sometimes silly, sometimes serious.
We had a Thankful Tree nearly every year from 2011-2019. The only year we missed doing one was 2017, when we moved to Texas and were not together for most of November.
I’m not sure what happened in 2020 — I guess COVID and business stress got the best of me — but we didn’t do a tree that year, and then, somehow, we haven’t done one since.
It’s far too easy to let day-to-day hectic schedules take over and not slow down enough to appreciate small things along the way. This is, perhaps, even more true when you have four children with schedules of their own and you are attempting to achieve high growth with a business.
It’s fair to say that for the past eight years, I have frequently felt like I’ve been in survival mode, going from fire to fire. Now, I’ve hit a reflection point. I’m trying to be more intentional with my time and return to some of those traditions that the kids (and I) appreciated.
What I’m Thankful For
I didn’t spend 30 Days writing it down, and given it’s December 1st, it’s too late for pre-Thanksgiving gratitude, but I wanted to spend a few moments embracing the wonderful things and people in my life this year.
Thanksgiving with Family
We traveled up to my mom’s and stepdad’s house this Thanksgiving and spent the holiday with them, three of my six brothers, a niece and a nephew, and my great-uncle and great-aunt.
It was a wonderful holiday filled with delicious food and great company. Everyone pitched in to cook, entertain the kids, and we got to celebrate my great uncle’s 84th birthday.
I’m thankful for the nearness of family. Before we moved to Texas, we typically spent Thanksgiving just with ourselves because family was too far away to visit. There are parts of living in Texas I don’t love (like 100-degree summers), but the closeness of family on both Chris’ and my sides makes it worth putting up with.
I love seeing the girls spending time with their cousins and hearing what my brothers are up to in person instead of over the phone. Now, we just have to convince the last two to move down here so they can be in the picture, too. 😉
Our Business
I’d be remiss to leave you with the impression — either from my last post or this one — that being a business owner is a drag or purely a source of stress. It’s not.
Every day, I am thankful for Equalize Digital and our team members. Over the last 14 years, I have taken a small side hustle and, with the help of Chris, our business partner, Steve, and team members, turned it into a thriving company that supports multiple families and makes a difference in the world. It’s interesting, exciting, and challenging. I’m doing work that feels valuable and that I love.
On the work front, I am grateful for…
Our Partner Steve
Steve started working for us in 2017 as a developer and quickly became someone whose experience and opinions I trusted immensely. He’s been a partner in growing our software and business, and I don’t think Chris and I could have found a better person to team up with. I truely value his dev skills, work ethic, and approach as a CTO, and I genuinely enjoy talking to him over Zoom or the few times we get to meet up in person at a conference.
Our Community
Of course, our business is doing well due to the efforts and contributions of many people beyond Chris, Steve, and me.
- We have a fantastic team (Paola, William, Jacob, and Maria, especially) who contribute to making the day-to-day happen.
- Our investors, Joost and Marieke of Emilia Capital, believed in our vision and helped finance our efforts.
- Our clients and customers who trust us and our software with their websites and accessibility needs.
- The speakers who volunteer their expertise for WordPress Accessibility Meetup.
- The companies who sponsor our meetup, making it accessible to all and more affordable for us to run.
- Everyone who shows up to our events, reads and shares our blog posts, listens to our podcast, and cheers us on from the sidelines.
Our New House and Neighborhood
Moving was an ordeal, but 100% worth it. We’re all incredibly grateful for our new house. It’s nice to have everything brand new and working perfectly (versus the long list of yet-to-be updated items in our 1970’s house).
Here are a few sneak-peek pictures from before we moved in. I’ll circle back at some point and post more once we have pictures hung and furniture fully arranged (the last of it is getting delivered on Tuesday 🎉).
It is hard to say what we love most about the new house. Nora and Zara are enjoying having their own rooms. Addie and Vivi are still sharing but have a much bigger room with more space for play. Chris and I like having more space between our offices during Zoom calls, and of course, it’s nice to live somewhere where we got to pick out everything. Also, I have a bathtub now!
Outside of the house itself, we love the community in our neighborhood. One of the reasons we chose this neighborhood is because the homeowner’s association does more than just manage the pool and landscaping. There’s a full calendar of activities for families and adults.
I joined the neighborhood book club and attended a meeting last week. Over Vivi’s birthday weekend, there was a “camp out” outside the amenity center with hot dogs, s’mores, and an outdoor movie. Of course, I’ll never pass up an opportunity to sleep in a tent, so the three little girls and I spent the night meeting other families, making lantern crafts, and cuddling in sleeping bags. (Chris popped in and out, but was also on chauffeur duty for Nora, who had a dance team activity that night.)
Next month, there’s a breakfast with Santa, an ugly sweater decorating party, and more activities we’re looking forward to.
We haven’t had a close group of friends since leaving Colorado. It’s been more challenging to meet people and regularly hang out with them once I started working full-time, and after moving to Texas, I missed feeling like I was part of a community.
I’m grateful to have found a neighborhood that makes meeting people and building community easier, and thankful that our business made it possible for us to make this move. So far, everyone has been incredibly welcoming, and I’m looking forward to finding new friendships.
All the Tiny Things
One of the beautiful things about 30 Days of Thanks and our Thankful Trees was that it gave us the opportunity to be thankful for small things we frequently overlook as “expected.” Things like fresh fruits and vegetables, clean laundry folded and put away, an abundance of toilet paper, and a colorful drawing of our family carefully crafted by a five-year-old.
When you write down what you’re thankful for every day for a month, you start paying more attention to all the tiny things.
I started blogging to keep our family updated as we were expecting our first child. Then, I blogged to track Chris’s and my journey toward achieving our desired life. Fifteen years later, I’m rediscovering blogging and figuring out how to fit it back into my life, which is, itself, a tiny thing to be grateful for.
I used to say that this blog was about “finding joy in the not-quite-there” and I think that still applies. Not all posts will be about my life — I have several business and WordPress posts planned — but I’m aiming to mindfully mix the practice of daily gratitude with finding joy in small things and share it here.
And that brings me to the final thing I’m thankful for: you. Thanks for reading and supporting me. Until next time. ❤️
Leave a Reply