09/01/2026
Thank you to everyone who stopped by my table at the Corn & Apple this weekend! It's a bittersweet festival, the last hurray of the summer before the fall settles in, transforming leaves to their autumn hues as the days grow colder & darker once again.
Last year, I left my table (and the arduous task of packing it up!) in my friend Barb's very capable hands as I took off to catch my flight to Montreal to begin the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training.
And though my flight was delayed 24 hours, last year's Corn & Apple was a very different LaDawn than who I am today. The 200-hour changed me in so many ways but the time since it finished in April has been equally transformative.
This weekend, someone asked me what I did all summer and I said, "Nothing...I intentionally did not pack the summer full." I certainly had things I could have done, maybe 'should' have done but I elected instead to care for myself & my girls in the best way I knew how - by slowing down.
Last night I started my 9th Gratitude Journal. The first one started on May 19, 2016, almost 1 year after marrying Rob. Every night since, I've marked down 3 things I'm grateful for. Even on August 25, 2019 after a very successful first Corn & Apple followed by what would be our last argument. I lived with a co**se long before his actual death October 31 but even on that darkest night of my life, I found 3 things to be thankful for.
Being grateful is not about ignoring the difficult & challenging parts of one's life. It's choosing to be thankful in spite of those things. Some days, I can easily think of 10 things and other days it's a struggle to make it to 3. But I have learned that as I'm grateful, I begin to see that blessings fill my life - and my journals - in overflowing ways that I wasn't able to see before...just another thing to be grateful for!
