This week, I have another set of doors from Morocco, sent to me by my sister, during her visit to the exotic destination.

If you notice the third door and the ones I put in my previous post, many doors have two knockers- one for the men and the other for the women. Each makes a different sound, allowing the people in the house to know if a woman can answer the door or not. Also, in the door to the left, you can see a smaller and a larger door in the same door. The larger door would be opened for special occasions and to allow animals like mules, horses or camels to enter.

Many of the doors in Morocco have a Moorish design. The Moors were a certain group of Muslims who lived in Sicily and the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages (from my research on the net). The design involves an arch and rich carving. Blue is a common colour used in Morocco. You see it on doors, tiles and walls. Apparently, Morocco is a door lover’s paradise. There are doors everywhere. You don’t need to hunt around to find beautiful doors. I have just these pictures, however, as I reminded my sister that I needed door pictures towards the fag end of her trip.

This is all I have this week. If you would like to see doors from all over the world, you can check Dan’s site. Dan hosts the ‘Thursday Doors’ challenge.

I’m also linking this post to ‘Thankful Thursdays’. I realize how important it is to write these posts. It’s so easy to forget all the good that’s happened and focus on the bad. That’s just how, we, human beings are wired, and it requires a conscious attempt like listing all the things that one is grateful for, to remind ourselves that it’s not all bad or that it’s not that bad as our melodramatic brain seems to suggest.

Until I began writing this post, I believed the week wasn’t great. All I remembered was how anxious I had been over the last two days. I had been worrying about a lot of things, which, now seem insignificant in hindsight, like how I should get my book to those who would enjoy reading this genre and how to get those who read the book to write a review. This has to be a debut writer’s worst nightmare and it was mine, too, until this morning. I had an epiphany. It struck me like a bolt of lightning and I was flooded with gratitude. Thank God, better sense prevailed. I realized I was wasting precious days worrying unnecessarily about things beyond my control. I felt like a load had been lifted off my chest. As the sun was still in hiding, I continued to lie in bed. I was scared that the positive feeling was temporary and would disappear the moment my feet touched the floor. But, it didn’t. It stayed and it ballooned as the day passed. I feel thankful for my husband, children, family, home, friends, another day of life, and the ability to wake up and do the things I want to. It’s funny how aware I am of the importance of gratitude and mindfulness and all of that and yet the past few days I let it all slip to the background and allowed little irritants to come to the fore.

Well, here’s all the things that happened during the last week that I am thankful for. I’m grateful to Colleen for her Meet the Poet post where she featured me and shared her review of my book. The care that went into putting together the post is obvious because I only answered Colleen’s questions. She did everything else. I’m also thankful to Manja, for her lovely review, which I’ve shared alongside. It gave me a reason to smile.

Also, a close friend’s divorce ( after a long, difficult marriage) finally came through. She’s finally free.

In addition to all of this, I met a wonderful group of women through a Meetup group. We connected over our love for travel, books and small, meaningful groups.

I’m shocked that I had forgotten all about how good I felt after meeting them. Instead, before I wrote this post, all I could think about was how irritated I had been during the week- about something someone had said to me or had not done for me.
Finally, I’m grateful for ‘Thankful Thursdays’ and the opportunity to write this post.

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