S1.E34: Remember To Say Thanks
Every day we find ourselves asking for things: answers to life’s problems, healing for illnesses, peace of mind, or material things we desire. Often times we receive the things we want so effortlessly we chalk it up to coincidence, or simply forget to say thanks. In this episode Kayla reminds us of the value of staying in a state of gratitude as it attracts more good things!
www.AttractItWithEase.com
Podcast Music Credit: Caleb Britton @NeonBrotherDC
Hi there, your host, Kayla rein, and welcome back to attract it with ease. Once again, we're missing Adria this week, she's still working at her new job. Our schedules are hard to coordinate, and I'm sad to say she won't be joining us for this episode, but I am really excited about what we'll be talking about before we jump into that. I want to talk a little bit about my gratitude, because I always have so much to be thankful for. And this week I am so grateful for my outdoor shower.
I know I said that in the past, but oh my gosh, it's so nice to be able to take a hot shower. Those of you that have been listening for a while, know that I have a shower in my tiny home, but it's not real convenient or easy to use. We actually have the shower full of toiletries and our laundry basket. And because we live in a mobile, tiny home, which is a military truck, we have to empty all of the water that we use.
So taking a shower in the truck is not ideal, and it is so nice to be able to just go maybe 25, 30 yards away and have privacy and a hot shower and be able to shower under the stars or in the warm sun. And it is so wonderful that the weather is nice enough to be able to do that. And I'm so grateful for my outdoor shower. I also think I've mentioned this next one before, but I'm so grateful for my air fryer convection oven.
It's kind of a combo unit that we bought when we moved into Hank, our tiny house. And we literally use it every day. And most of the time we just use it to reheat meals because we use a meal delivery service. That's fresh prepared meals that we just reheat kind of in an oven rather than a microwave, but it is pretty much our only appliance. And we use it all the time. I can bake in it. I can air fry.
I can reheat. It's got so many functions, but I'm so grateful for it because it is our pretty much our only appliance and our most used appliance aside from our coffee maker in our home. So I'm grateful for that. And then number three, I've talked about this in kind of a roundabout way, but I'm going to talk about it a little bit differently today. I am so grateful for the ability to connect with people all over the world. I've said this before in relation to the podcast, I've said it before in being able to custom order things like my wedding dress, but really where I'm thinking about it today is that I have been needing to replace my hair.
If you recall, if you've been listening for a while, you know that yes, I have real hair, but I also wear a hair piece because my hair is thinning. And the, the hair that I have is getting old and tired. And the company that I order my hair from, they've been sold out of what I need for several months. And I just reached out to them and it looks like it's going to be several more months before they restock what I'm looking for. So the past couple of days I've been researching other companies and places that can basically do the same thing for me.
And I found a place in China of all places that will custom make me exactly what I'm looking for. And I'm so grateful that there's options out there and the ability to connect with people on other sides of the world and the ability to pay people on other sides of the world. And I'm just so grateful for technology and the way that we're all connected. So that's what I'm grateful for this week. And that leads me into our topic for this week, because we do focus on gratitude a lot.
But if you recall, that's because gratitude is one of the biggest, best things that we can do to attract more good things into our life, finding ways to be grateful and feel grateful for what we already have. What we've already received, puts us in that positive state that just vibrates at such a high frequency that we attract so much more of those good things. It creates that snowball effect of when you start a snowball rolling down the hill, it begins to gain momentum.
It gets bigger. It starts rolling faster at rolls. It rolls at rolls. It gets hard to stop. So if we can stay in that state of gratitude, we can continue to attract so many good things. All of the things that we're looking for. So on that topic, what I want to talk about this week is actually remembering to say things. And that seems kind of silly because yeah, it's easy to, to say thank you. And when big things happen in our life, we do. And I've alluded to this on prior episodes talking about how it can be difficult to stay in that mindset of gratitude, to want to stay there and remain grateful for things.
That's kind of like once we receive something it's so easy to just move on to the next thing and go, okay, well, what's next, what's next? What's next. But there's so much magic in staying in that state of gratitude that today I want to go through a list of a whole bunch of different things that I've received in life. Some of them I've mentioned before on the podcast. A lot of these, I have not, some of them are a big deal. Some of them are little deals, but at the time that I asked for the, each of these things, they felt like a big deal.
And all of these are things that I have received. Every single one of them is something that did not just fall out of the sky for me. Some of them did, but they were things that I asked for. Some of these were things I asked for for a while before I received them. And it was fun to sit down and take a few minutes and make a list of all of these random things in life that have happened for me. You know, I'm constantly saying things are always working out for me and they actually are. Things are always working out for me, but it's so easy to just chalk it up to well, that's how life is or to think it's a coincidence or to just not give the gratitude that the situation deserves, especially if something comes easily or especially if something comes quickly, sometimes we forget to stop and feel grateful or to stop and literally say, thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for fixing that. Thank you for giving me that. Thank you for taking care of that so that I don't have to worry about it. Those are things in life that happened on a day to day basis. And you're going to see as I go through my list of things that some of these are just so random and I'm sure you'll be able to relate to so many of them. And I think you'll see that there's probably opportunities in life where you've received and maybe didn't say thank you, or didn't focus on being grateful because as time goes on, we just kind of, now we have it, or now that's resolved.
It's no longer a problem. And we forget to stay in that state of gratitude. So I'm just going to start with a list of random things. I'll talk through some of them and just explain where I was when I was asking for the thing, how it came about in some cases. And I'm just going to go through a list of, of things. And hopefully, like I said, you'll be able to relate to them. So the first thing on my list is that I had this terrible, terrible sore throat.
Last week. I felt like I had strep throat and I even started worrying, oh my gosh, what if this is? COVID like, it was so bad. Nothing would touch it. I couldn't hardly talk. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't eat. It was so, so painful. And I thought to myself, I cannot remember the last time my throat hurt this bad. This has got to be something really serious. And I'm sure listeners that you can relate to times in life when you have been so sick or something was so sore or so painful that it was like, you're just praying too.
Like, please just fix this. I think I'm going to die. I would almost rather die than deal with this. I'm sure everyone listening can relate to that in some aspect. And that's how I was feeling about my sore throat, because it hurt to turn my head. It hurt to, like I said, swallow or talk or anything. I just, I was like, how do you even survive when you, when everything you do hurts. So I remember thinking, oh, I've got to get over this. I just need this to go away.
And I think if you've been listening for a while, you know that the way that I, I pray is not a traditional form of prayer, but I do believe that we can call upon the powers of the universe to come to our aid when we need them. And so of course I do ask for help in my own way. And I remember just in my own version of prayer, asking for healing and saying, oh my gosh, I just, I've got to feel better. I can't do this. I've got to get through this.
This has got to improve. And I kept thinking, oh my gosh, am I going to have to go to the doctor? What if I have COVID? What if all these things? And you know, I try not to focus on that, try and pull those thoughts out of my head and focus on healing and feeling better. But I was taking zinc multiple times a day. I was taking vitamin C. I was gargling with Listerine. If you've ever had a really bad sore throat and you haven't done that, do it. The alcohol in the Listerine will literally kill the bacteria in your throat.
And if you do it multiple times a day, it helps kill the germs that are in your mouth. Long story short, this horrible, terrible, bad throat lasted four days. Like I've never had a cold, but lot support days. It was just crazy. It literally came from out of nowhere from being excruciating to just suddenly going away. Like, I really thought this was going to be something that would linger for weeks and it just overnight almost seemed to improve.
So whatever I was doing definitely worked, I didn't need to go to the doctor. I didn't need an antibiotic. I didn't need anything. I just needed a time. But there have been so many times in my life where I have been sick with something. And I've had that feeling of, oh my gosh. If I could just feel better. You know, I think back to, I think it was March or April of 2020, and I had been training to be a train conductor. And I had been exposed to COVID and I came down with a really, really horrible, terrible illness.
I tested negative to this day. I don't know if it was COVID and if my test was, you know, inaccurate or whatever, but I was sicker than I have. Then I can remember way worse than the sore throat I had last week, but everything hurt. And I had problems breathing and all of the COVID symptoms. And I just remember thinking this is miserable. And I knew that COVID takes weeks to get over. And I was just like, I can't survive. I can't make this. And yet, somehow I did.
Somehow I got through that. Somehow I got better, whether it was COVID or it was a terrible cold or something else, I don't know. And it really doesn't matter, but I'm in great health today. I'm feeling wonderful. And those are two examples of times when I just was begging for assistance. And then when you feel that relief, it's almost like you just are back to normal. So it's so easy to forget, to take time, to stop and be so grateful that you got over it. You're feeling better.
Life is improved. You can get back to normal is so easy to just kind of let that come and go because now life is normal and onto, you know, getting back to life in that I can remember when I first got divorced, I had a terrible tooth abscess money was so tight because I had gone from a two income household to a single income household. And I could not afford to have a root canal. I just, I could barely afford to get my tooth pulled and I didn't want to get my tooth pulled.
The doctor, tried to talk me out of it, but I remember some of the most excruciating pain I've had in my entire life. It just shot up into my head. I couldn't focus. I couldn't stand. I would lay on the floor with my head between my knees, just riving in pain. And I remember just thinking, I want to die. I want to die. I can't do this. I can't live like this. Like I can't even function. I can't even stand. I can't even sit up. And I got an appointment to see a doctor on a Saturday. He came in and he pulled my tooth for me.
He tried to talk me out of it, but I was like, no, I just need this to stop. Like, I literally am going to want to kill myself. I want it. I know that sounds terrible, but that's how bad it was. I really could not survive feeling like that. And the instant that he pulled my tooth, there was instant relief. It was just instantaneous. And yeah. Do I miss that too? Sure. I do. It's one of my back molars, so I don't notice it so much. It doesn't show when I talk, but man, that was an answer to my prayer to have that relief come.
And when I think back on that, I go, oh my gosh, thank goodness I got through that. Thank goodness. I'm still here to tell the story and talk about it because I literally wanted to shoot myself. Like I'm not exaggerating. It was that much pain. I've had kidney pain before. These are all just physical things. I don't mean to just focus on the physical because my list is so much longer than that. But when I think of all of the things that I've experienced, I broke my knee and had to have surgery.
And then I, after surgery, I would have these twitches that would come from the muscles and they would hurt so bad when I'd have these twitches. I couldn't control because it would cause my, my leg to, to move when I had just been through surgery and it was in so much pain and sore and I would die. I would freak out for like half a second and then it would stop and then it would do it again. And then it would stop getting through those things in life. When I look back on it, I go, oh my goodness. I am so glad that that is in my past.
And that, that is not my experience right now. And that, that is not what I'm dealing with. I am so, so grateful that I got through those things. And like with my sore throat, I'm so grateful that it healed so quickly and almost effortlessly. I mean, yeah, I had to take some vitamins. Yes, I gargled. But mostly I just sat around feeling sorry for myself and trying to focus on, can we get better? And things are always working out for me. It's going to be okay. It's not going to last forever.
So those are a couple of examples. I can think of several times that I have been looking for a specific collectible for my re done collection. She constantly comes out with new pieces and frequently comes out with things that she hasn't created before. For example, she just came out with new corn holder dishes. People are probably like, who needs corn holder dishes? Well, I don't have them yet, so that's not my example here.
But she comes out with things that I don't have in my collection. And then they become very hard to get your hands on because it's new. It's rare. Everybody wants them, everyone that collects her stuff wants to add it to their collection. And I can think of so many different pieces that she's come out with that I have just been like, oh, I really want that. I hope I can find that. I hope I can find that at a good price. There are some websites and apps where people trade and sell these things. And so you can often find some of these kind of on the secondary market, but oftentimes they're asking so so much money that they're not even affordable if you can find them.
So I can think of one instance in particular, when this was probably in 2018 or 2019, probably 2018. She came out with these big possibles, really nice, big bulls that are shallow for pasta. And they're so cute. She'd never released them before. And she came out, I think with 10 different sayings on them. And I try and collect a place setting of eight.
So I just wanted eight of the 10. I wanted to get my hands on eight different sayings and it took me a bit, but I did, I got eight, the eight things that I wanted. And then I had them for a while and they were so highly collectible. I could see on the secondary market, the price is going up and up and up way higher than what I had paid for. And then I thought, oh my gosh, I should sell these. Like, they're worth so much money. I, I know I want them, but I should sell them. So I talked myself into doing that. I listed them, sold them almost immediately because they were so collectible.
I made a bunch of money. I was feeling really good about it. And then within a few days I was sitting around wishing I hadn't sold them because I'm like, oh my gosh, they're so collectible. Like, I, I wish I had them. I loved them. So instantly I wanted them back. So now the prices are higher. I just made a bunch of money. How am I going to find them to rebuy them? It was this whole thing, but I did. I wanted them. I wanted them again. And I was able to locate them and purchase them.
And I can't remember, honestly, if I ended up making money in the end or if I just ended up paying about what I'd made on them, but I still have them. I love them. There's some of Dan's favorite dishes there. They're just these giant bowls that are great for like a big salad or like I said, pasta or something. And they're just some of my favorite pieces in my collection. And I'm so grateful that I was not only able to find them the first time, but I was able to find them again. And I was able to add them to my collection. And even now they're considered extremely rare.
She's come out with other sense, but they look different. And so I just feel so great that I have these beautiful pieces that I love. I enjoy. I actually use that are highly collectible. And so that's another sample. Also have a family reunion coming up in August and last year the family reunion was in September. And I didn't know if I would be able to get the time off to attend to because my wedding was planned for October 1st.
And I thought, oh my gosh, the weddings, like two weeks later, how am I going to get time off for the family reunion? And then time off for the wedding? Well, we ended up postponing the wedding because of COVID. So I was able to get the time off for the family reunion. And that was awesome. And then this year it was the same kind of situation. However, our family reunion is now in August instead of September. So it's a little bit further away from the wedding, but those of you that have listened for a while know that I have a fairly new job. I've only been there for about 90 days now.
And I didn't know if I would be able to get time off for the family reunion, plus the time off that I need for the wedding. And so I just put it out there. I'm going to be able to attend both. I'm going to be able to go. And as my dad is getting older and my mother has passed away, it's really important to me to spend time with my family. Well, good news. I got the time off approved and I'm going to be able to attend our family reunion in August. And I'm so excited about that. And I'm just grateful that things are always working out for me.
So a few years back after I had broken up with my ex-boyfriend, that I've mentioned on the podcast and we had been living together and I essentially kicked him out. And then I was living by myself, but I wasn't working. And so money was tight. And eventually I decided in order to stay in my house, I needed a roommate to help cover the bills, but I was living in Las Vegas and I didn't know a ton of people.
And I didn't even know how to go about finding a roommate, especially because when you have a roommate, you share your house, you share your space, you have people coming and going. They may want to have friends over, they're going to want to store food in the refrigerator. You don't want them to eat your food necessarily. So I was kind of apprehensive about getting a roommate, but I felt like if I didn't, I likely was not going to be able to afford to stay in my house. And I did find a roommate that worked out extremely well.
Someone who didn't really want to have people over enjoyed watching many of the same television shows I did, we would go out for girl's night on occasion. And she didn't become like a best friend by any means, but definitely someone I was able to tolerate living with that helps share the expenses at a time that I needed it. And that was something again that I had asked for in the universe brought me someone that was what I would say, perfect situation at the time that I needed it.
And that's something that I look back on and go, you know what? I'm so grateful that at that time, I didn't have to deal with finding a new place when I was an employee that I was able to stay in the place that I was in. I had a decent living situation and I made a friend out of it. And so I'm grateful for that too. I've said this on the podcast, but I've had times in life, particularly when I was unemployed just after COVID, after I had been training to be a train conductor.
And then the training center closed and I found myself unemployed, things were tight. I didn't have unemployment. I've said that because I didn't qualify for railroad unemployment. I hadn't worked there long enough and the railroad has separate unemployment. So money was really tight and I was able to afford wine, but I was drinking like cheap, cheap Liberty Creek. If you're familiar with Liberty Creek, you know what I'm talking about? $5 bottles of wine, $5, like giant Magnum size bottles of wine for $5.
And I'm so grateful. I was able to afford where I am at that time, but I can just also remember just really wanting nice, good wine, wanting to back to a place in life where I could afford good, expensive, fine wine. And it's not that money matters. It's not like I need to spend a hundred dollars on wine. In fact, I almost never do that, but even to be able to spend $20 on a bottle of wine, when you're drinking $5 Magnum sized bottles of wine, like that was a big deal to me.
And I've mentioned on the podcast that I have changed my thoughts about money, and I now put more money into wine than I used to, but I, now I buy what ever wine I want and I enjoy it and I love it. And I remember being in a place where I just wished that I could afford it. I wished that that was my life and that is my life and my experience today. And I'm so incredibly grateful to be in a place where I can afford good wine.
All right. Well, I have tried to Dan for his birthday pretty much every year that we've been together and I've tried to make it a habit to take him on a trip for his birthday, because I definitely value experiences over things. And I feel like if you're going to spend money on a gift, why not make it something that will be super memorable? And this last year for his birthday, I wanted to take him on a trip, but I, because of COVID, I had kind of waited for a while to try and plan something.
I didn't even know if we would be able to go anywhere. I had been employed for a few months. So it was only a few months before his birthday that I had started working again. So money was a little bit tight, so I didn't have the budget to be able to plan much like early. So came down almost to the wire to be able to plan his birthday. And I wanted to be able to take him to Tahoe. I wanted to be able to stay in a nice hotel. Like Tahoe has a lot of older properties and even the older properties are pretty expensive, but a lot of them are outdated and look like they haven't been updated since the seventies or eighties.
And you know, that's just not my jam, nothing against vintage, but I definitely wanted something nicer to stay in. And there was one hotel that I really wanted to stay at. And online, it said it was sold out and I just thought, oh, I really want to be able to take him there. I had activities planned in Tahoe and I thought, I don't want to have to drive back home. I really want to be able to find something that's affordable, but nice to stay in. They ended up calling the hotel and I was able to get a room, even though online.
It said they were sold out by calling the hotel and asking them about the date or dates that I wanted. I was able to get a room booked. And I was so grateful for that because it was so much fun. It was the perfect birthday outing. We were able to go to Tahoe away from home life without going too far was affordable. And in my budget, it was a nice hotel within walking distance of a lot of the things that we wanted to do. And I was so grateful that that worked out when just looking online, it didn't look like I was going to be able to make that work.
And so that was a really good one. Another one that I've talked about is just being able to release the podcast. When I decided I wanted to do the podcast, I had no idea how podcasting works. I didn't know how to take your audio recording, how to edit it, tack on music, put in commercials. If you had them, obviously we don't have commercials. How do you upload it? How do you, you know, send it out to all of these different streaming places like, you know, Google podcasts and apple podcasts and audible and all, like, I just had no clue how any of it worked.
I just knew I wanted to do a podcast. And so to be able to find the resources and figure it out and teach myself how to do it and get it released in the timeframe that I wanted. Because when I first came up with the idea, it was October of 2020, and I wanted it to release before 2020 finished. And it did, I wanted to be able to say there was something good that came out of the year, 2020, if nothing else, my podcast came out of the year 2020.
And so I had from October to December to record some episodes, figure it out, get a release. And I was able to do that. And I definitely feel like it was through assistance from the universe that that came about. Yes, I put a lot of the work in, but I couldn't have done it without the guidance and the resources that I was able to find in order to learn how to release a podcast. So those of you that know me know that I have several tattoos on my left arm.
I have a sleeve and it is very fine detail work. I wanted something that would look like a henna tattoo. If you're familiar with henna, it's not a permanent tattoo, but it's very detailed line work to create these beautiful patterns. And I wanted something that looked like henna, but that was more permanent all the way down my arm. So I had a tattoo artist in Vegas that I really had my eyes set on, that I wanted to go to for this particular tattoo.
But I had never been to him before. I was no longer living in Las Vegas, and this was not his traditional style of tattoo. So I was a little bit nervous about getting tattooed by someone for the first time having it be such a large piece. And then of course, because this entire tattoo is linework. It's, there's that nervousness of what if they screw up? What if the lines don't look good? What if they're shaky? What if they're uneven? What if they're thicker in some places? And so again, I just put it out to the universe, that number one, I would be able to get an appointment and get the time off work to be able to go to Las Vegas, to get this tattoo done.
Number two, I just kept saying things are always working out for me. If I just believe that the tattoo is going to work out perfectly, meaning the end result, it will, he will do a phenomenal job. And I don't think I've told my tattoos story on here before, but originally when he quoted me the tattoo, he thought it would take six to eight hours because it's literally just lines. When it came down to it, it took 12 and a half. And as we got at the eight hour mark, it was obvious we were going to be there much longer.
And if I had lived in Vegas, he probably would have stopped and called it quits and said, let's schedule another appointment. But I had driven five hours from Sedona, Arizona to get this tattoo done. And so he asked me, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm doing good. I just want to be done. And he's like me too. Let's just bust through it. And so it says difficult on the tar, a tattoo artist as it is the person being tattooed is so physically demanding for the artist as well. But we just sucked it up and 12 and a half hours under the gun.
I have this stunning tattoo that not a week goes by that I don't get a compliment on how great it is. Where did you get that done? It's such incredible line work. I could not have asked for a better end result. It is perfect. And I have gone back to him for a couple of more tattoos since, but I am just so grateful that when I decided to put a tattoo over my entire arm, that it worked out to be perfect.
It literally, there's nothing I can complain about. The line work is incredible and I am so grateful. Once again, the things are always working out for me, those of you that have listened to the podcast for awhile, know that I am getting married this October, we're eloping in Yosemite. And there are so many factors in so many pieces to this. Yes. And elopement does not have the same kind of planning or details that a regular wedding and reception does, but there's still a lot that has to come together.
And I just want to list a few of those pieces that have really come together for me. First of all, our rings, Dan and I picked out rings that we wanted from a jewelry artist that normally works in silver, but we did not want silver rings. We actually wanted copper. I don't think our listeners really know this, but I'm really into copper. I'm a total non traditional list when it comes to most things in life. I like one-off one of a kind everything.
And so I wear a lot of copper jewelry. And even though copper turns your skin green, it's totally my jam. And I love that. It's non-traditional. So we approached this jewelry artist to see if he would make our rings in copper. And at first he said, yes, and then turned out the coppers heating point was such that it would not work with his jewelry making materials that he had.
So long story short, he was able to cop compromise and he made it in gold bronze called brass called bronze, I think is what it's called, which has a copper look. It also turns your skin green, but we basically were able to get our custom rings made in a custom color exactly the way that we wanted them. And they're beautiful. And so to be able to find exactly what we want and get it done in the copper color that we wanted, I feel like that was, that was incredible.
And I'm so grateful for that. I've talked about my custom wedding dress. I, because I like one of a kind things. I fell in love with all kinds of wedding dresses online, but I don't want a white dress. I don't want traditional. I've been married before I already did the whole white dress thing. I wanted something that was not white. And so to find anything that looks like a wedding dress that is not white, is a challenge in and of itself, but there's a lot of limitations when it comes to colored dresses.
And so long story short, I found a dress that I loved, absolutely loved that still is not traditional wedding dress, but found it in white and was able to find a seller off of Etsy that could recreate the dress in the color that I wanted. That's still a secret. So I'll leave that up to your imagination as to what color wedding dress I'm wearing, but I'm so excited to have been able to find the perfect dress exactly the way that I wanted it, be able to customize every piece of it, have it custom made to my size, my measurements, my everything, and, and I'm so super grateful for that.
Along with the honeymoon. As I mentioned earlier in the episode, we were planning to get married back in 2020, October 1st was our wedding date and we put it off, but we had already hired our photographer and we had to cancel when we canceled the wedding. And because we canceled without notice and we didn't reschedule because we didn't know when we were going to reschedule. We essentially lost our deposit. Well, when we rescheduled our, our engagement or our I, not our engagement, when we rescheduled the elopement, we reached back out to the photographer and it took him a while to get back to us.
So I thought, oh my gosh, she's, he's unhappy. He's, he's displeased that we canceled on him with not a lot of notice last year and probably doesn't want to work with us long story short. We finally did get ahold of him. He does want to work with us. He was already booked for the day that we needed in the evening. And thankfully we're doing a sunrise ceremony. So we were able to work it out with him that we could do photographs the sunset before, and then a sunrise ceremony that morning.
And right after our ceremony, he'll leave and photograph his other wedding, but was also incredible about it is that he decided to take the deposit that we had already paid from the year prior and apply it towards our fees for this year. So when all of a sudden then most of our photography was already paid for when we rebooked it. And so that was just an incredible blessing in disguise, but against a way that the universe just came to our aid, gave us the photographer.
We wanted gave us an incredible price. Everything worked out. So after we hired the photographer, we needed to get our permits and not permits to the park, but permits for photography. If you're not aware when you're shooting professional photography in a national park, you're supposed to have a photography permit. Well, we have two different dates now that we're shooting, we're shooting sunset the night before the wedding and sunrise, the day of the wedding. And so we had to apply for permits.
I sent those applications in back in February, it's a non-refundable deposit just to apply and they cashed my checks and I hadn't heard anything. And, you know, technically you're not supposed to be getting married and shooting professional photography without a permit. And, and they're definitely limiting the number of people in the parks right now. So I've been waiting since February to here. And I finally reached back out to the office of permits and found out we were approved.
We got the dates that we wanted and, oh my gosh, I feel so relieved. And so incredibly grateful for that too. And when I think of all of the pieces that are coming together for the wedding, it's, it's just incredible, you know, planning the honeymoon, we're paying out of pocket for it. I don't like debt. I don't have credit cards. I don't want to go into debt for the honeymoon, but I want to have a honeymoon. I don't want it to be, feel like we're on a super tight budget. I don't want to be camping and living out of our rooftop to hit for a week.
I want to be able to have a luxurious, romantic honeymoon. And, you know, we were able to get a couple of different places where we're going from Yosemite to the Sequoia national forest and from there to Napa because we're such wine lovers. And so we're staying in three different places. And we were able to book the hotel in Napa without paying an advance. We're going to pay at the hotel. So that saved a lot of money out upfront to be able to get it. And I'm so grateful. I was able to get that books because they've sent, sold out and I haven't even paid for it yet, but I have my reservation and I'm, I'm grateful for that.
And then the other two places where we've booked on Airbnb and we only had to put half down upfront. So it gave me time for us to be able to save up, to be able to pay cash for our honeymoon, to be able to enjoy the things that we want. And I'm so grateful for all of that coming together for us. On top of that, we have S well, an opportunity that kind of came up through my work, through my work. I have the ability to buy cars at wholesale, and we had this incredible vintage Jeep Wrangler become available.
That I was able to kind of put my name on and I thought, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay for a vintage car at the same time that I'm paying for a wedding and all of these wedding expenses. And it's just been incredible to see how, how things have worked out through bonuses at work and just just life is coming together. And this is an investment that we'll be able to have some fun with, fix up a little bit and flip it for a profit, and it will be an investment vehicle for us.
But in the meantime, it will be just a fun, fun project. And I have been able to work out the finances of being able to purchase this vehicle, plus pay for the wedding and the honeymoon and all of these things, and on a very limited timeline. And, and I'm just so, so grateful. Like I said, that all of these things are coming about for me. And at this point you're probably on the podcast going, okay, I get it, I get it, I get it. But I just want listeners. I want you to know that we all have these things in life.
We all have things that we ask for countless things that we ask for, and then we get them and sometimes they just happen so fast. Sometimes they happen so easily that we just move on to the next thing, but to take some time to just sit and think about how blessed we really are, how many things in life work out, how many times we ask for something, we pray for something, please resolve this, please fix this. Please give me a solution to that.
Please help me find this. Oh, I really want this. Oh, I wish I could afford that. Oh, you know, whether it's gifted to us or we come up with the resources or the solution works itself out, or someone handles something. So we don't have to, all of these things come together for us. And, and it's just, it's incredible. It's amazing. And for us to actually take a minute and think about all of these things from our past and say, things are always working out for me.
And, oh my gosh, my life is incredible. And I cannot believe I got through those really hard times. And I'm so grateful that those things are behind me. And, ah, thank you so much for this wonderful meal or this fabulous experience or the ability to get time off for this or the ability to create that. I mean, there's just so, so many of these things that when we take time to think about it, we should literally be just walking around on cloud nine, living in gratitude all the time, because there's countless, countless, countless things that happen for us that are positive and that are good.
And the more time we spend thinking about it, number one, how in the world, could you be in a bad mood? How in the world, could you be a bad in a bad mood? If you thinking about all these fabulous things, but then number two, the more that you focus on it, you stay in that state. You feel so, so, so good that you're vibrating at a place where you can only attract more of the same. I have so many more things on my list that I have not gotten to so many things. I mean, when I was, I don't know, in fourth grade, I really wanted my ears pierced.
I really, really wanted my ears pierced and my parents wouldn't let us until we were 12. And I somehow convinced my dad to let me get my ears pierced. I mean, that's just crazy. That's the fourth grade. When I was in sixth grade, I really, really wanted braces. I wanted braces so bad and none of my siblings had had braces. My parents didn't make much money. My mom was a stay at home mom. There were six kids. We were poor. My parents got me braces. It's just incredible.
The things in life that work out for us. And so, although I have a ton more things I could go through, I think I shared with you enough for you to understand that it's important for us to remember to say, thanks. Thank you universe. Thank you for helping me through that. Thank you for bringing me the things that I'm asking for. Thank you for how blessed my life is. Thank you for the things I now enjoy and the things I've experienced in my past.
Thank you for the things that I have to look forward to and the things that I'm planning and the things that are coming together for me and the things that haven't fallen apart for me, the incredible outcomes that I've experienced and continue to experience because things are always working out for me. So with that, that leads us into our action item. And you probably can kind of guess I've alluded to it all along, but listeners, I'd like you to take five minutes, just five minutes to write down your own list of as many things that you can think of that have come together for you.
Things that you have at some point asked for in your life. Something that you've said, I wish this would happen. I wish this would stop. I wish I could get the solution. I wish I could receive this. I wish I could afford that. I wish I could go there. Make a list of those things. Just take a few minutes. And then once you have that list, take another five minutes. So 10 minutes total take another five minutes to just feel, feel the gratitude. Remember how wonderful it was to receive those things.
Remember how great it feels right now to not be in that place anymore. To be past that, to own the things you own, to have the things you want to have been able to experience the things that you've wanted to have things you're looking forward to spend 10 minutes on gratitude. I know that you will be in a much better frame of mind and you will attract more and more good things. That's it for this week. I want to remind our listeners of our giveaway.
If you leave us a review on any platform, now this is not a, a star review. We do appreciate star reviews, but if you write us a review, tell us what you think of the podcast, what your takeaways are. If you're enjoying it, leave us a review on any platform and you'll be entered into our giveaway this year, each week, we will draw a winner of those that have left us a review to receive a free bracelet with your theme word of the year. These are custom made. They're unisex. If you don't know what I'm talking about, when it comes to theme words, go back and listen to episode one.
It's all about selecting a theme for the year. Choosing one word that will be your theme. And we'll make you a custom bracelet with that word on it that you can wear that will remind you of the theme. You can find examples of those on our website, attract it with ease.com. And we would love to hear from you. We don't have a winner for this week. It's been a few weeks since we've had a winner. And so there's a really good chance. If you leave us a review that you'll be able to win a custom theme bracelet. Anyway, I appreciate you, our listeners. I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you next week.
Have a good one. .
