Writing in Snow

Thankful Thursday on April Fools’ Day

Word count: 503

Today is Thursday, April 01, 2010, it is April Fools Day and it is Thankful Thursday. There is only one April Fools’ Day per year, while there are fifty-two Thankful Thursdays. The concept of Thankful Thursday comes from a weekly prompt I receive from a journal-writing group. The idea is simple, not matter what difficulties a person is facing she or he can find, at least, ten things to be thankful for each week.

Every Thursday, I make a gratitude journal entry in an off line journal called Writing My Spiritual Journey. In this journal, I address a letter to Glory, the name of my gratitude journal. Since I make one gratitude journal entry per week, I do not keep a separate gratitude journal any more. I use the Writing My Spiritual Journey Journal for this and any other entries I make only once or twice a week.

My April Fools’ Day Gratitude List
Some of these Items come from articles in this morning’s Las Vegas
Review-Journal and Sun

Today I am thankful that…

1. …laughter is a social response to other people. This means that when I am with someone else and that person laughs. She or he is not laughing at me, but rather because my presence make her or him happy.
2. …the new definition for laughter is a positive emotional experience. Apparently, scientists can get grants to study positive emotional experiences, but not laughter.
3. …laughter is a universal language which everyone (at least, everyone on Earth) understands.
4. …one of Dear Abby’s readers is worrying about how prisoners on death row clip their toenails since they do not have access to sharp objects. This means that I have one less thing to worry over.
5. …I do not see face of Abraham Lincoln or anyone else in my food. Food is expensive enough without eating anything that could potentially make me a millionaire.
6. …there is one day a year devoted to laughter, hilarity, and just plain silliness. Because even though life is serious, we do not need to take everything seriously.
7. …human beings are not the only creatures in the world who laugh. Rats, as well as other creatures, laugh. Researchers use rats to study positive emotional experiences by tickling them. It seems rats enjoy being tickled.
8. …babies laugh before they can talk or walk..
9. …children are still using the silly old April Fools’ “There is a bug on your shoulder” today, at least in the comic pages.
10. …I can still enjoy April Fools’ Day.

When I was a child, April Fools’ Day was always fun. It did not matter whether it fell on a weekday or a weekend. I have two brothers and a sister, so one of them always pulled an April Fools joke. None of use was born on April 1, but I have a grandniece that has a birthday today. I always wonder what it would be like to have a birthday on April 1 instead of December 24.