Glennon,
This is beautiful and brilliant and inspiring, and in a moment you changed the way I have been feeling. You have single-handedly moved me from a place of fear and scarcity to understanding the abundance of my life.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This was an awesome post! As Americans we are too focused on STUFF and getting the latest and greatest. Too many of us have lost our perspectacles and forget how truly blessed we are. Thanks for the reminder!

Thats a fucken pisser! I want to be your friend too!! Powerful, inspiring, well said and perfect in every way really. Thank you for sharing this experience and bless. I have just returned from a month in Thailand and my whole life has changed. I have travelled before, I have experienced dire poverty before (and I have witnessed it in Oz and O.S.), however none of it matters if you are able to feel gratitude for what you DO have. I am officially in deep love with the term ‘perspectacles’ and will steal for sure, if only in conversation with myself. You are amazing and and I really appreciate your writing style and lateral mind.

Well Said!!

I love you. Can we be friends?

I love your kitchen, especially those big drawers! Someday maybe I’ll have some? My fridge looked just like that when my kids were young & now i have my grandkids stuff! We are down to earth Country Folk. WHY fix something if it ain’t broke? – <3 from Kansas

Thank you, I needed to read this today!

When we change our perspective it is amazing how great our lives look and how blessed we are!

I will never understand why people think it’s okay to make unsolicited suggestions to improve your house. How could you not take that as an insult? They might as well say “you’re not good enough.” I had some friends over when we moved into our house and I was so excited to show it off. They gave me suggestions on how to make the window frames “less 80s”. So upsetting. I don’t think people see it that way though. They assume we all want the advertiser’s dream that has been sold to us and that they are being helpful. I’m with you though. I’m grateful for everything I have. I think the life I lead is amazing. And despite how crazy the world is or how 1982 my microwave happens to be, I find that the more grateful I am, the happier I feel.

Love your article! It’s given me a new perspective, too. Thank you, so much and I love your word, “perspecticals”. 😀

I have never felt so happy and content with all I am so blessed to have than I did after reading this wonderful and uplifting story! I agree, the second picture is the most beautiful picture of your kitchen you could show us! Thank you from an Educational Assistant who is happy you love and appreciate all your children’s schools do for them and even more know all those who help teach them appreciate all that you do for them! Bless!

Fantastic!

Thankyou.

I needed to read this today, thanks for the eye opener. gratitude is how we get rich!!! A Canadian mom

God bless you. What a beautiful & inspiring post x

“I’m a grown up now. I know what looks good on me, and that doesn’t change every three months.” – I think this sentence has just changed my life…… Thank you x

Wonderful! What liberating insight : )

This is one of the most profound blog posts I have ever read. Thank you.

My husband and raised six children in a clean three bedroom mobile home. I thank God everyday for a clean roof over my head and for the beautiful homes my children live in today.

Perspectacles – love it! My children are in their teens and the best laughs are when we are dancing in the kitchen!

I just wanted to let you know that I read your article about a week ago and I have been working to wear my perspectacles on a more regular basis. Three days ago my husband wrecked his mountain bike and landed in the hospital with multiple broken bones and a list of other things. This article has helped me a lot. My perspectacles have been on almost from the moment I got the call and it’s have made this tough time a lot easier (at least for me!). I have no idea who first came up with the idea of perspectacles, but I love it and I plan to share it with everyone I know. So, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story so that it could help other out there, like me.

Loved the post. So true! Great reminder that I need to put on my perspectacles more often! Makes me think of the children’s book, Pete the Cat and the Magic Sunglasses. (Meant to underline book title, but can’t seem to do it;)

What a beautiful post. I can relate so fully to that feeling of disappointment and sometimes even disgust when I begin comparing myself or my home or my wardrobe to women around me. I desperately needed to read this so I can remind myself to wear my perspectacles every single minute of the day. Thank you thank you thank for the eloquent reminder of all of my blessings. And I love your after picture.

Oh (wo)man! I am laughing out loud and crying at the same time and keep looking at my dh who is working late right next to me, trying to catch his eye so that I can read this to him too. 🙂 Thank you! The perspectacles will defintely be brought out tomorrow morning around here.

Love it!!

“Perspectacles!” …. Love it! Thank you for pointing out so eloquently how to rise above the confusion between needs and wants to which I seem to always succumb! Gratitude is humbling. Thank you!!

Thank you for this entry. It’s so easy to get caught up in the race with the Jones’ that I forget to just be us sometimes!!

Many years ago, we got our first house..a real fixer upper..in a nice little family neighborhood ..after 7 years of marriage and living with our kids in an apartment in a really bad neighborhood for way too long. Despite the flaws, those were some of the happiest times of our lives. As our older boy exclaimed when he saw the backyard complete with derelict tire swing and broken down sandbox..” mom, we have our own park!!!!” And indeed it felt like we did.

I absolutely LOVE your post! Thank you so much for writing and sharing 🙂 also, I actually think your kitchen looks nice. not sure where the “need” for updating suggestions came from. you have a beautiful family and a beautiful perspective on life. love, love, love it!!! 🙂

Thank you for posting this. What a reminder for me today; putting on my “fresh eyes” to see things!

I shared this on my Facebook page. The opening quote – if you are not happy now what makes you think more will be better? Has fundamentally changed me.

Thank you.

YES! Just yes! Thank you! Screw the stainless steel matching appliances and marble countertops or gold countertops or whatever is in fashion these days. Give me dance and mess and joy!

Thanks right…rock out your kitchen girl! #thankful

Assuming you live in the US…

School is not free. It is paid for by the government, which is funded by taxes that [presumably] someone in your family is paying.

Truer words have never been said Glennon and have never been needed more than right now. Now if only your perspectacles could be marketed and sold!

Have just returned from Kurdistan, Iraq where many people are losing, have already lost and will continue to lose their families and their homes. Your post is spot on. Your kitchen is clean and functions for you and your loved ones. That is all you need, in fact, that is all anyone needs when they think clearly about it….

Respect!

I love your perspective and gratitude. I also love your before and after kitchen photo’s! Thank you for writing such a heartfelt post!

Wonderful article. I am so thankful that we have a roof over our family’s head and warm, clean, beds to sleep in at night.

I love this so much! Remembering to be grateful for what you have is just so important! No, my rental house is not exactly what I dream of my house being, and significant portions of my furniture were either purchased used or were (loving) hand-me-downs from relatives, but it all works! I love the care we’ve put into what we have and the kind thoughts of those who gave. As long as everything functions and I am able to keep it (relatively) clean, I’m happy. 🙂 What a great reminder this was.

My kitchen has the same floor. and I’ve been told that my cabinets are “dated.” I love your perspective. It is wonderfully humbling and so TRUE! I will continue to try to be grateful for all my bounty. Much love!

I love the way you think! Thank you so much for this!

Wonderful! You are truly blessed to be so wise at such a young age! I just read a quote yesterday that said “be grateful, there are people praying for what you take for granted” thank you for writing this! I found you through Julia’s blog “hooked on houses”. I will continue to read your blog. You have been a blessing to me!

awesome post!

I enjoyed your sense of humor and the emphasized words with the CAPS LOCK! Great article, thank you for sharing your vision through your perspectacles 🙂

Love the article and the sentiment. Only one teensy comment (as a homeschooler), public school isn’t free. It’s really expensive (averaging $9000/child/year). It’s just invisible because it comes out of tax dollars and not direct expenditures.

A Facebook friend shared your article and I am so grateful they did. What a wonderful message you have. I love your perspectacles and am going to do my best to keep my pair on! Thank you so much!

This is so true! The media monster is never satisfied and tells us how miserable or out-of-touch we are.
Let’s slay the monster and choose to be content! Who’s with me?

WOW, with a good looking, sexy guy like your man in it, any kitchen would be great!! Much harder to create a happy family & home if you were a single mom of four kids.

Love the before and after!

I came to you via a post on GardenWeb’s Kitchens forum.
I have reread this twice and cried both times.
Just thank you.

Exactly what I needed! Our 20+ yr old home needs some “upgrading” but other responsibilities have replaced that for now. Your article puts it all in perspective…I too know that Gratitude of the Heart will overcome all negative vibes so I’m thankful for where I am just now and what I have just now…THANKS!!!

This was fantastic. Love the idea of changing ones perspective to gain an appreciation of what’s already right in front of us.

My dear…I don’t know you, but I do know you are beautiful! Fab post lady…simply fab!

Dear Glennon-
I wanted to write to offer you something you may not need (how’s that for an opening?!). First, your article is wonderful. It’s funny and poignant and delivers on all fronts. But that isn’t the reason I’m writing. I’m writing because when I rolled through the comments, in addition to the vast majority of positive ones, there were, of course, some negatives sprinkled in (that comes with the digital territory, I suppose). But there were also far too many harsh, dismissive and hateful posts as well. Something about what you wrote touched an ugly place in certain folks and . . . it bothered me. I couldn’t help but think how I would have felt had I been in your shoes. I too am a writer and, from the sound of it, roughly ten years older than you. While I have learned a lot over the years about not taking that kind of stuff personally when it is directed at me, the reality is that sometimes, it still get through. Sometimes, it still registers. Some days, it can still hurt. Maybe this is true for you also. (Maybe not – in which case, this is definitely offering you something you don’t need). But if it is — if that stuff sometimes gets through and especially if it did in this case, I just want to stand here, holding up a big, imaginary sign that says, “THEY ARE WRONG. DON’T LISTEN.” Your post was beautiful and powerful and healing. Period.
So there it is — for what its worth. Sent with warm wishes and sunshine and smiles and rainbows and unicorns. (Hoping that last line might draw any lingering hate-mongers off your scent and on to mine)
: )

What a great way to start my day! My home was in forclosure when I met my husband. I was 32 years old, no kids and in poor shape.. emotional and physical. Now 4 years later I have an amazing 2 year old, a new life and a family. I’ve been struggling to let my failure to keep my home, single life and things of the past go…. even though I have a family, home and everything I could need. Feeling bad about life in a trailer park, in a double wide and having no real social life (like I used to). This article I read this morning made me feel selfish, ungrateful and ridiculous. What a beautiful artical, I’ll remember to keep my perspecticals on and move on…

This reminds me of a quote I love (but sadly can’t find the source for): “Happiness isn’t getting what you want, it’s wanting what you have.” SO very true – I believe you have found the true meaning of happiness.

I should like to point out that even ‘cold’ diet coke is not synonymous with ‘healthy food’.

Really fuckin Stupid

Delightful article, delightfully written…and reinforcing a message we all need to be reminded of in our marketing-driven culture.

This is so wonderful, we all just read it and pulled the plug on our planned . . . kitchen reno. Thank you!

My husband and I just bought and moved into our first “real” home and–wow–I’ve been so excited in the days and weeks leading up to the move-in; I felt no real need to make any changes and saw myself and our future family being very happy in it. My parents came to town to help move and one of the first things my mother said to my husband upon seeing the house and backyard were ALL the massive changes and additions we could do to it to make it even BETTER! He is more polite than I am, so he said nothing. However, as the day went on with cleaning and unpacking, most of my mom’s chatter was all about changes we could make and how we would have to make the best of it as it wasn’t as big as she had hoped (wait–she’s not living there…WE are!) it would be. Long story short…I shouldn’t have let it damper my excitement… but I did. And then I re-read this post to remind myself of exactly why I was so excited, content and happy with what I got and what I will have in the future.
I don’t mean to make my mother out to be someone she’s not… she is a good person… but she is a mother :).
I wish more people could think this way about “stuff”, and it’s really too bad when the promotion of all this “stuff” seeps into our relationships and actually causes bad feelings and rifts. I’ll keep this post tucked away in my arsenal of good thoughts:)

I was a child who grew up sometimes hungry, sometimes not clothed enough, and often, not loved or appreciated enough. My children are of the digital era, and some would say they are indulged. But they understand the value of what they have, and the importance of caring for those around them. So as I sit in my rented house, listening to yet another friend talk about how they struggle to pay a mortgage on a house in the “better” suburbs, I am thankful for my little corner of love and appreciation, with a husband who loves me, children who are growing into fantastic adults, and yes, food, clothing and medical care in abundance.

BTW …. I also danced in the kitchen. Its a requisite for a happy home.

After I read this post I ordered your book on my Kindle. And then I devoured it in 24 hours. I’ve been feeling quite lost and confused lately. For years, actually. I’m not sure how to be a person who believes in hope and faith. I really want to be “gone” most of the time but I want my kids to believe in hope and faith so I fake it. So anyway. Your book leads me to believe there may be a way to live, a way to be, a way to hope and have faith. I could see myself in your words, living in love. Swirling thoughts and emotions were given shape and definition in your book. I felt hope for the first time in a long time. So, thanks.

Wow. Talk about the ultimate in self-congratulatory naval gazing.

I absolutely loved your ‘after’ photo. Kitchens aren’t called the heart of the home for nothing. Love and laughter are better than any fancy kitchen every could be.

Hah.I could share pictures of my kitchen to make yours look super nice and make people really freak out how outdated things are. Let’s just say we live in a 1970s mobile home where nothing has changed except for the people inside.

Anyway, as long as it all functions the way it should (in a trailer park that is not a given at all), I am content. I have made some really great meals in that “horrible” kitchen.

Bravo. A wonderful, witty reminder to keep my perspectacles on at all times and fully embrace my beautiful and very blessed life. Thanks.

I love you, your attitude and your view of the world. A young woman friend and I just had this conversation this morning, it’s exactly how I raised our kids in a simple old farmhouse that rocked with dancing. Bless your beautiful heart!

“If we do not feel grateful for what we already have, what makes us think we’d be happy with more?” — Unknown

This is the most ignorant quote I have ever read. Answer: Ask the poor, the hungry, and the unemployed.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post. I just posted it on my wall! Really. I loved every single word of it!! I smiled and teared up the whole time. I live in an affluent suburban area and I found this to be a breath of fresh air!!!

This is wonderful. I’m so grateful to the Facebook friend who shared it. It went straight to my heart. Thank you!

Every mom (and probably most dads) need to read this! Awesome.

I absolutely LOVE this post! I feel exactly the same way you do. We are SO incredibly blessed and most of us take that for granted on a daily basis. Your kids are growing up feeling loved and blessed because your family values each other. They won’t grow up cherishing memories of a magazine-cover-worthy kitchen, but memories of the food, the love, and apparently… the dancing! Thanks for sharing this. If we all learned to be more content with what we have, I think the world would be a much better place.

Brilliant! Best kitchen makeover ever.

My father was an avid woodworker and I inherited his tools. His mantra was buy the best you can afford. Take good care of it and the tool will likely last you a lifetime. I see kitchen gear in the same light.

Thanks for this eye opener!!! You are right, I now see mine in a new way!!!

I just discovered you today & you & yours have brought a smile to my face & joy to my soul. Thank you.

Love your story,

thank you for this post, it gives me a new perspective on my whole house! P,S, I love the Jetson’s analogy for the microwave!

“Perspectacles”?…I love it! I have a similar kitchen, heck my whole apartment could use a makeover, but almost everyday I encounter a homeless person somewhere in NYC and am reminded that I am lucky to have a roof over my head and food on the table. Would I like new carpet and bedroom furniture? Truth be told, yes. But the real question is do I really need it now or can it wait until I have saved enough to pay in full without straining my budget.

Love how you positively framed your daily blessings for fresh water, cold food, safe schools, and COFFEE . Thank you opening my eyes.
I am going to my kitchen, touch everything, and thank God for each.

I love your kitchen. I grew up in a similar kitchen (many years ago and more dated, of course); it’s the sort of kitchen I’ve loved all my life and still do to this day. You have your priorities right. My four kids are all grown now (just around your age) and they have similar kitchens. I must have passed it on, and you will too.

You, my friend, are a genius. An admirable scroll of truth. Thank you!

I love this article. While reading it and scrolling through the pictures my 7 year old said, “Is that our refrigerator in that picture?” We live the same way and I try to remind myself every single day to be grateful for ALL that we have at our fingertips.

Thanks for the reminder of how blessed we are to have all the things we usually take for granted. The most important blessings are the people in our lives, not the material things.

I love this heart-filled, wonderful and wise post. Thank you.

I love your kitchen, and it looks a lot like mine…right down to the rainbow loom. Thanks for letting me take a look through your perspectacles. I’m going to go find a pair for myself. XO

This is the best post ever. You seriously just saved us thousands of dollars…

Your kitchen is beautiful and mine is looking better too, thanks to your ‘gratitudes’. Thank you.

If LOVE is in the home – then EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL.

Well said, Ms. Melton! And I totally agree with you. We still drive my wife’s 2002 PT Cruisers and are able to keep it running. I would be still driving my 2000 Neon if it had not been totaled in an accident that fortunately every one walked away from. As my wife has told me, we don’t try to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ because the ‘Joneses’ are not living next door, they are marketers in some plush office somewhere trying to figure out how to separate us from our money….

I love this. I can’t wait to use the word “perspectacles”.

This is awesome, wonderful, and a perspective we should all keep in mind. Thanks for sharing

Love this!

I feel the same way. But sometimes it is hard to stand up to judgement and not desire more things, it’s the way of the world and it’s desperately trying to conform us.

You are a VERY wise young woman. I celebrate you. It is not the goodies that you have in life, but the good friends and family. Some people never learn that we already have more than many people around the world. Excellent and FUN post!

Really, really love your column. This is exactly how I feel about our older home..it is warm and cozy, we have all the things we need and people we care about. There are some things we are slowly fixing up and changing but it is mostly through clearing out and painting not buying. New things are only bought if they can no longer be fixed. Thanks

I had forgotten that I danced in my kitchen….with each of my kids. Today is a good day to dance again. It’s been far too long. Thank you.

Right On! LOVE is the best decor ever. I too refuse granite and corbels and trendy glass tile! My kitchen will be getting redone soon because it is dysfunctional and falling apart, the most important “upgrade” will the meals shared with friends and family

I loved this. Wonderful!

Keep’em smilin, keep’em coming home; that’s all that matters.

I am a single person with 2 beautiful cats. They keep me sane and insane at the same time. I absolutely love your kitchen makeover. I, too, dance in my kitchen. My mother and aunt taught me to “always be thankful/grateful for what you have and, dance and sing when you feel the need”. Thank you for enlightening us and reminding us to be thankful every day.