December 18, 2010 · 10:38 am

Love & Loathe – 12/16/10 (late)

It was dinner with friends the night of the 16th that kept me from you, My People. I know you don’t begrudge me that enjoyment, but I wasn’t here and I know you missed me. I did think of you, and I’m here now. Does that make it better?

Let’s find out what’s going on in my life this week, shall we?

Loathe:

* The bank saga continued from last week with a climax of me memorizing the PIN to the ATM card, but then forgetting the ATM card in the ATM machine. Then I ordered a new ATM card, at the cost of $10 (which I can’t get them to waive). I think I’m just going to give up and go back to my online money control. All this hard cash stuff is apparently over my head.

* Our homeowners association determined that December would be a good month to have the homes in our community powerwashed and painted, and have roofing repairs done. So we came home one day to find that they had disconnected all my plants in my back yard from their irrigation lines, moved them away from the house, tromped all over our Christmas decorations on the ground (busting the blowers and stakes) and powerwashed a few of the decorations on our house (shorting one of them out). Put another mark on the Impotent Fury chalkboard.

* I’m really, really having a tough time finding the Christmas spirit this year. I’m angry with God for several reasons, and it’s admittedly tough to have the Christmas spirit when I have an “F/U” attitude toward the Reason for the Season. I’m working on processing this, and maybe someday I’ll share, but this whole vendor thing is just the cherry on top.

Love:

* Every Friday, my company has breakfast brought in for their employees. I don’t know what kind of bagel this is, and I’m not much of a bagel fan, but I love this bagel. They don’t always bring it in, but it’s the only kind I’ll eat.

* The rain. It’s raining now and I’m hoping it will rain nonstop for the next three weeks. That would keep those painters and roofers away from my plants and our Christmas decorations. I guess a gun would, too, but that might land me in jail.

* Tony found these in Walmart. I think they are just adorable and they have Santa hats with jingle bells! The soap inside of them is really nice, too.

* Kindle for PC for free. No one told me you don’t have to have a Kindle in order to read Kindle books! I am so thrilled! I downloaded the Kindle for PC app on my netbook, and now I can read any offered Kindle book in electronic format without having yet another electronic device to find a plug for its charger or lug along when I go places. Or pay shipping on ordered books and have to wait. Or pay exorbitant prices at the snooty bookstores around here. I love, love, love this!

One Last Thing:

While we were out on the 16th, our friend’s brother pulled out his wallet and told us that he had made it. Out of duct tape. Oh, I know, all duct tape jokes aside, look at this thing and the detail that went into it.

And think about how sticky duct tape is, and then imagine making pockets for credit cards, identification cards, cash, etc. He said it takes him about an hour to turn one out and he can customize them to whatever needs a person has.

Me? If I tried to make one of those, I’m thinking I’d be stuck to the ATM machine, along with my ATM card, crying until they took me away to a loony bin.

23 Comments

Filed under Love/Loathe

December 9, 2010 · 10:12 pm

Love & Loathe – 12/09/10

Loathe:

* Banks that are too big for their britches, which is kind of how I feel about Chase right now. They gobbled up WAMU, which is one of three banks I’ve been with for years and years. Now I’m in the throes of disillusionment with them. I sense a change a’coming…

* Companies who insidiously raise their prices every few months by a couple dollars. Cox Internet, I’m looking at you right now. Internet was $38 a month and now it’s $41? Surely there’s a cheaper high-speed option or am I stuck with them since they have the unfair monopoly on this geographical area?

* Blue credit and debit cards. I got my new credit card in the mail, since the old one expired, and they changed the card’s color to blue. The same exact blue of all the other credit cards I have. My card is PLATINUM level, and has been platinum colored to match the level for all the years I’ve had this card. Why are they changing it to BLUE? (See “One Last Thing” below as to why this is such a big deal to me.)

* I woke up with a sore throat this morning. Why, oh why does getting sick always, always, always coincide with my period?

Love:

* There’s a rumor that we may get another day off around Christmas at my company. A morale booster type of thing. I gotta say, just the rumor of it is already boosting my morale.

* Tony fixed the drains in our bathroom sinks tonight… the stopper came out of mine about a year ago. The stopper came out of his two nights ago. Also, he found a better hair filter for the bathtub drain. I love having good drains.

* The lady who trims my hair. She is such a perfectionist. She takes extra time to ensure that my hair is even and that I’m happy with it. I love people who take pride in their work.

* My company is switching health insurance companies come the first of the year. In reviewing the new benefits plan, I’m thinking this actually might work out in my favor. Not totally, you understand, but enough to make me perk up a little bit.

One Last Thing:

You wouldn’t think the color of a credit card would matter much, but you would be thinking wrong. See, yesterday at lunch, not being used to the new BLUE card, I gave two vendors the wrong BLUE card, which triggered an insane domino effect of events.

The “wrong blue card” is connected to an account that we’re closing out. My simple error overdrew that account by $22. I was notified immediately via email, so I called the vendors and requested that they cancel and recharge the correct card (which they did), but the refunds didn’t show up right away.

So after work I went to the ATM to draw cash out of one of my other accounts which I cleverly intended to deposit into the overdrawn account. Except I never use my debit card for that other account, and they change the PIN on that card every time they send me a new one (which they also did a few months ago… a blue one) so I didn’t know my PIN.

So… I’m standing there at the ATM, befuddled as to why the PIN I thought was correct isn’t working and *TADA* my period hit with a vengeance and, in two seconds flat, flooded through the protection I was wearing. Oh, but it gets better.

So I go home and ask Tony if he can spot me some dough until today. He kindly said “sure,” because he’s the kind of guy that would give me the moon even if he didn’t have it to give. So, I then temporarily transferred funds from Tony’s account and the account I screwed up was then fine.

EXCEPT a charge he’d made three days ago hadn’t cleared his account, wasn’t in the pending area at all, but it cleared this morning, and that overdrew HIS account. So today he went and made a deposit from another account to cover my $22 error and the resulting $34 NSF fee.

I was on the verge of tears for a bit there last night, but now as I’m typing this out I’m sitting here laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

Imagine, if you will, being the customer service rep at the bank and getting my call today wherein I explained all of this and then ended it with a plaintive, “All I wanted was a hair trim and a yogurt and look what I did.” Needless to say, she credited the $34 back. At that point, I’m not sure if she felt sorry for me, or if she was just afraid of what would happen to her if she contributed to the endless list of stuff that followed my simple color error.

Karma, you know.

19 Comments

Filed under He Fixes Things, Health/Endo, Love/Loathe, Sometimes I have to laugh

December 2, 2010 · 8:07 pm

Love & Loathe — 12/02/10

Loathe:

* This headache that I’ve had since Monday night. It’s one of those lingering ones that hangs out at varying levels of intensity. I think it’s sinus related, because food, hydration, sleep or pain meds don’t cure it. Also, I have a weird mental reaction to headaches in that I convince myself it must be because of dehydration, so I overhydrate. which means that I do lots of peeing while having a headache. Aren’t you glad you know that about me?

* Everyone at work has a cold in various stages. What on earth did you people do? Spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of sick people? And how am I supposed to stay healthy when all of y’all are haawwwing all over my work space?

Love:

* Productivity, even while being off my feet. Christmas cards got written and held for mailing until the 1st of December (thankyouverymuch!). I got pictures downloaded off my SD card (but not uploaded to the Internet). I reformatted and reloaded my primary flash drive (had a corruption problem). Oh, and let’s not forget about reading the first 4 Harry Potter books.

* Weirdly uncrowded theater. We had a date afternoon on Sunday and went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. Initially we were gonna go to the 3:15pm showing, but opened the theater door and stared, horrified, at all the people wedged in there, elbow-to-elbow. Went to the 3:45pm showing instead, and there were maybe 20 people in there. So I stretched out across four seats and watched the movie as if I were at home in my living room.

* We had a fancy meeting yesterday at work. For the fancy meeting, fancy food was ordered. This concoction is a chocolate chip covered strawberry. Have you ever seen such a thing before?

One Last Thing:
Christmas decorations are showing up… I saw this one on top of a high-rise building when I was leaving work last night. It gave me a moment of happy. Obviously. Because I took this picture to share with you.

We’ll be digging our decorations out this weekend. I’m half excited and half terrified… I’m fairly certain the stuff multiplies during the year while it’s hiding under the stairs, because there’s always more stuff than what I remembered having.

Maybe someday, we’ll do scaled back Christmas decorating … when meeting neighbors for the first time (still happens, even after 5 years here) the first question is, “Which house do you live in?” And when I say, “The house that gets over-decorated for Christmas,” they always reply, “Oh, we love that house! That’s you??”

So, yeah, scaled back decorating? Ha. Right.

20 Comments

Filed under Love/Loathe, We Love to Decorate

November 24, 2010 · 9:49 pm

Love & Loathe — 11/24/10 (early)

I find myself in an odd place this Thanksgiving. I had to take a couple days off from work to have a minor surgery, and my doctor has ordered me out of commission for the next few days to recover… which means I’m unable to attend dinner with the family tomorrow. I’ve given my slave husband orders to bring me home some turkey and stuffing. Really, out of all the bounty prepared, those are my favorite things of it all — turkey and stuffing. Not even the desserts compare. I know, you’re gasping in shock right now!

The meds they have me on make me quite sleepy, so my wish for naps and resting has been granted in a very big way. Which is why I’m writing now, because I may very well be sleeping tomorrow away. Huzzah!
How much of my yesterday was spent, note Tug’s possessive paw on my chin?

Since it’s Thanksgiving, instead of writing loves and loathes, I’ll just share some of the things that I’m thankful for this year.

* I’m incredibly thankful for having a wonderful husband in my life. He is sensitive, thoughtful, intuitive, responsive, responsible, loving and attentive. He makes me feel cared about, loved and safe, He is also prone to fits of goofyness, and his lack of self-consciousness is not only an inspiration to me, it’s also something that garners spontaneous laughter that just bubbles right out of my soul. I love this man that I’m married to so very much.

* My close friends. I’ve said it before, but it’s so very true: Having a support system in place is critical to get through the highs and lows of life. Isolating myself, even though that’s usually my natural instinct, is the exact wrong thing to do. For those of you who have offered words of wisdom, or support, or “just the right thing at the right time” — you are more appreciated by me than I could ever express.

* Having a job. Every day I wonder why I am where I am. I wonder why they seem to like me so much. I never, ever take for granted that I have somewhere to go every day and that I get a pay check. I do like my pay check. I always try to start the day like it’s a new job, that there will be new things to learn and expect the unexpected. When I have that attitude, I find it’s much easier to take the changes that seem to come at such a rapid fire pace.

* The basics of life. Having a home to live in with appliances that work, in a safe neighborhood, with (for the most part) great neighbors. Pets that are healthy and some that are working their way back to health. A car that is fun to drive and reliable. Beautiful plants in my back yard that I nurture and they, in return, give me so much joy.

* My health. This is something that I’ve not always had and I’m so pleased that, for the most part, I’m healthier than I’ve ever been in my life. I attribute it to two things — first, I found an exercise that I love to do. When I take my weekly day off from swimming, I miss it sooooo badly and can’t wait to get back in the pool the next day. Second, raw milk. Seriously. Unpasteurized milk has so many health benefits. (Link to read if interested.)

* Doctors that I respect and trust almost implicitly. I will never, ever stop asking questions, not after all I’ve been through with incompetent doctors, but the doctors I have now are either one step ahead of me and answer my questions before I ask them, or patiently answer my questions, and sometimes have changed the course of treatment to meet my requests… which means the respect is mutual. To finally have excellent doctors is a huge blessing.

* Fun socks. I know, this is so silly after all the Big, Serious, Deep things I’ve listed. But wearing fun or crazy socks under a conservative business suit is a fun little spot of happy in my day. Today? Cornucopias. Tomorrow? Turkeys.

With that, I wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving, filled with all the people and food that you love. If you’re in a part of the world where Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated tomorrow, I still wish you lots of food and time with loved ones.

Lots of love,
Jammie J.

18 Comments

Filed under Health/Endo, I feel Glad, I have Family, I have Friends, Love/Loathe, Sometimes I Sleep

November 18, 2010 · 6:40 pm

Love & Loathe — 11/18/10

Loathe:

* Being tired. (Long explanation: With Slasher having been so ill, we’ve isolated him in the upstairs bathroom. His day starts early, since Tony gives him a thousand meds before he leaves for work. Maybe I exaggerate, but I had no idea one could actually give a cat that many medications at one time. Anyway, my hormones have been whacked out, so I’m not tired when I should go to bed and I’m sleeping so lightly that I hear the neighbor’s dog’s flea’s farts three houses away. Giving a cat meds at 4:30am is much louder than a flea farting. And then I’m not able to go back to sleep.)

Love:

* When companies send a survey form asking how they did. I don’t know if they will actually read my response and take measures to improve their service, but I spent time filling one out for the 1st overnight facility where we took Slasher. That place gave us such a horrible experience… maybe they’re good with the critters, but they were horrible with the humans.

* It’s one week until Thanksgiving. I’m really looking forward to getting some rest.

* I finally figured out where to park my car to get shade at work during the afternoon. I had it wired during the summer, but this winter shift messed it all up for me. It’s the little things, people.

* Buy one, get one free deals… especially when related to pomegranates.

* Baking cookies. I made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and some banana chocolate chip cookies. Both types turned out soft, moist and incredibly delicious. I predict I shall be making these cookies all winter long!

One Last Thing:

Every year when the baking bug strikes me, and I start making things with pumpkin in them, I’m always surprised by our little girl kitty. She magically appears in the kitchen, quietly watching. Then when I approach the trash can with the empty pumpkin can, she bursts into pleading meows. The first year she hovered around while we were carving our Halloween pumpkins, and swooped in every time we turned our back for the pumpkin guts. Thankfully, she doesn’t do that anymore, but I love that she now waits for the leftover pumpkin in the can.

It’s been 5 years since we discovered her love for the stuff, and she still loves it… every year.

14 Comments

Filed under Kid Substitutes, Love/Loathe

November 11, 2010 · 11:23 pm

Love & Loathe – 11/11/10

Loathe:

* We had a layoff at my company this week. I survived the cut… this time. But I feel a great deal of compassion for those who were let go, as I will never forget how scary it is to be on the other side of that door.

* Night driving on the freeway. Here I thought rush hour was bad when the sun was out. The time change added a whole new dimension to the 10 million people crammed on a freeway together at the same time.

Love:

* I pulled one of the large rocks out of my cichlid tank and replaced it with ornamental plants. The goal being to remove sharp objects from their playground so they stop hurting themselves, but still keep their established territories. Look at me, trying to outsmart the fishies.

* Slasher is going to be OK. He still has some swelling in his urinary tract, so we’re watching him closely. But he is going to be OK. Even though we had a bad experience with the first overnight vet we took him to, we found an excellent overnight care facility for the second night. And now he’s home at nights, just under observation (and med administration) during the day. Thank God for our timing in finding him. Thank God that our primary vet really knows and loves animals. We almost lost him, thank God we didn’t.
Sunday, this is the view we had of Slasher at the vet’s… just his IV’s

Being transported to night care with his bag o’ urine…

* The community pool is still being heated. At this point, I’m fairly certain this is not actually an intended blessing from my HOA. But a blessing it is to me, and I will take it.

* Thanks to Tony and one of his birthday presents to me, the addiction to reign of Pink in my car’s CD player has been taken over by Jewel’s CD, Perfectly Clear. Hooray for musical variety in my life!

One Last Thing:

The other day a co-worker walked by my desk at work and, in a tone of disbelief asked me, “Is that a pomegranate you’re snacking on?”

I responded, “Yes, they’re one of my favorite snacks. I’m so glad they’re in season right now!”

She looked at me weird and said, “Do you eat the seeds?”

I responded, “The arils? Yes. They’re good. Kind of adds a crunch.”

“Oh. I always thought they were too much work because my mom told me to never eat the seeds. She says they build up in your system and make your appendix go bad.” She took a step backward and laughed nervously as if my appendix were going to pop out and bonk her over the head.

This lady has lived 48 years, married, divorced, raised two children as a single parent, holds down a demanding job, and yet has never eaten pomegranate arils because her mom told her not to. Now THAT is an obedient daughter.

Meekly, trying not to laugh, I managed to squeak out in defense, “But… they’re just fiber…”

24 Comments

Filed under Kid Substitutes, Love/Loathe, Money Hump Building

November 7, 2010 · 11:49 pm

Updated: Fretting Over Slasher.

We got home this afternoon from the mountains to discover that in the 36 hours we’d been gone, one of our cats had become critically ill. I won’t go into details, as much as I want to, but suffice it to say, it wasn’t pretty.

After six hours visiting two different vets, we’re not sure if he’ll make it through the night. And if he does make it, whether his kidneys will be OK. Which, well, kidney failure is terminal… so we might have just spent all this time and money when we shouldn’t have.

But we had to give him a fighting chance. We just had to… and he’s on painkillers now, so he’s not hurting anymore, which is something we couldn’t have done for him. We know he’s “just a cat” but dammit, we love him.

But after tonight’s experience, I can’t help but feel as if veterinarian care is overpriced… especially when we learned his second doctor, the one whose staff is monitoring him tonight, her last name is Crook. It’s a terrible thing to be in a position of trying to determine if someone we love can be cured, and if he can be cured, did we take him to the right place and choose to scale back the right tests because we can’t afford it? We just don’t know. Maybe another facility would have been less expensive, but timing was critical… and we felt kind of trapped by that… and humbled.

Of course, now I’m giving all of our cats a crooked eye for any odd behaviors… (sigh) Snug just ran away from me, does that mean he’s sick? Maybe I should just take them all in for a physical?

Forgive me for rambling… any prayers or good thoughts you might want to send Slasher’s way tonight and over the next few days would be most appreciated.

*Update*
I would have updated sooner, but it’s been touch and go for Slasher… but he’s home tonight. He’s on Valium and antibiotics, and he’ll go back in tomorrow for observation. But it looks like he’s going to be OK.

I’ll write details soon, when I have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief.

14 Comments

Filed under Kid Substitutes

November 4, 2010 · 9:11 pm

Love & Loathe – 11/04/10

Loathe:

* An inbox. To clarify, I love the concept of an inbox on my desk. In fact, it’s something I embraced early on in my career. But gradually it became the elephant that sat on my desk that no one wanted to acknowledge. Despite the label reading “INBOX” in 68 point font size, prominently sitting on the corner of my desk, most people refuse to use it. My desk is neat and tidy, so it’s not like their stuff will get lost in piles of paper. Instead, people put stuff on my chair, my keyboard, the corner of my desk, anywhere BUT the inbox that is labeled “inbox” in 68 size font. I’m pretty sure if it were an empty room with nothing in it but an inbox, people would STILL put the paper right beside the labeled inbox. Anyway, so now, when I come in some mornings, and the accountant person has put something on my chair instead of my inbox? I sit on it. So when she gets it back, she has something that my rear end has sat upon. That seems fair to me.

* Toilets that don’t flush properly (speaking of rear-ends). There is one of those type of toilets at work… I mean it’s a total power flusher, but it only does a half flush… so half of the previous user’s business goes away, but the other half is still there all disintegrated. If I get stuck using that toilet, for the record, I always flush it three times when I’m done. Just to be sure.

* Living a cliché. A watched pot of water never boils and a watched phone never rings. What are the chances I’d be doing two clichés at the same time tonight? So, I swept the floor instead. Suffice it to say, I have a very cleanly swept floor.

Love:

* Our Nemo. I can’t believe I haven’t told you about our Nemo before. He’s one of the first baby guppies that was born in our guppy tank. He’s outlived many of the other guppies, including his momma. He’s “special” … as you can see in the picture, his spine is bent and he swims around in a permanent seahorse-like posture, but he seems happy. We keep him isolated because the other guppies kind of pick on him and nibble off his fins — as if swimming isn’t difficult enough for him? Anyway, in isolation he is able to take as many swim breaks as he needs to stay healthy. We love our little Nemo.
Here’s Nemo…

The guppy slightly behind Nemo is a “normal” guppy, albeit a pregnant one…

* I’m really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. *happy sigh*

* My darling husband, despite all the challenges he’s faced over the last several months, managed to make my birthday special for me. I’m not the type of person who needs grand things on special occasions, but rather just thoughtfulness and love. He fills those two needs for me rather grandly and I’m grateful to him for that.

* Pumpkin power carver. I bought this thing at Big Lots on clearance and spent about 5 minutes carving my pumpkin. Honestly, when it was all done, I felt as if I had cheated… and poor Tony slaved away carving his pumpkin for, like, twelve hours! Sorry the picture’s so dark of his pumpkin, but it’s of Darth Vader.

Tony’s forever pumpkin…

My five minute pumpkin…

One Last Thing:

This was our table’s centerpiece over the Halloween weekend. Nothing says fall to me like the Three P’s… pumpkins, persimmons and pomegranates. It’s a beautiful (delicious) thing, isn’t it?

14 Comments

Filed under Love/Loathe, Money Hump Building, We Love to Decorate

October 30, 2010 · 9:17 pm

Unexpected Bounty.

Weird thing about last week, Thursday felt like Friday and Friday felt like a holiday. No one wanted to work on Friday and, shamefully, I admit to being part of that group. All I wanted to do was walk around and look at my co-workers’ festive creativity. Even our legal department went all out, they decorated AND dressed up like Indians — our head counsel being the chief… ha!
Legal Department…

When it got down to the deadline for voting, people were shuffling by my cubicle one right after the other. I was more than willing to give them a tour of my goodies, “Here is my wraith…” and press the button that made it eerily sing. “Here is Boney Barney, on a leash… leash law, you know.” They would nod, and I would press the button that made him talk. Then I would show them my eyeball ball, let them bounce it. Offer them some candy out of my skull cup, and add, “Don’t mind the rat, I don’t think he’s been able to get the wrappers off…” I would point out my pile of pumpkins, and then have them read the Batz Bar sign, ending with “We serve Boos, not Booze.” And then wave my hands about and say expressively, “BOOOOOO!” And as they walked around the corner I would say in a high-pitched voice that carried, “Vote for me!!”
A goofy video I made of my cubicle…

And I won. By two votes. I think it was the interactive tour. Apparently my win upset someone’s 6 or 7 year winning streak. Oopsie.

Cutest moment of the day? Several co-workers brought their spouses and their kids in to see the decorations. The one guy had two little boys and they gathered around Boney Barney and were petting and talking to him like he was a real doggie. For about 10 minutes! Awwww.

When I got home, I opened the back sliding door. The air was so crisp and fresh — fall-like — it beckoned me to go outside and watch the sunset. It was then that I noticed several tomatoes were ripe, and no birds had pecked through their dark orange-red skins. Then I noticed two bell peppers were ready. Thrilled, I checked my blueberry plant and pulled a handful off. By that time, my hands were so overflowing with harvested produce that Tony had to open the door for me so I could come back inside!

It rained this morning, around 6am, pounding down on the roof. I thought for sure I would be swimming in the rain, and later driving in the rain, but when I went swimming around 9am, the streets were all wet, but the clouds were beating a hasty retreat, and the sun was out for the day.

But really, I just love that I won the Halloween Decorating Contest!

I’m fairly certain that if there’d been a costume contest, I would have won that, too, based on the looks of amazement I was given when they realized I was Barbie Doll for the day. Plus, it’s the one day a year I can wear leather pants to work and get away with it.

Happy Halloween!

20 Comments

Filed under I did something Special, Money Hump Building, We Love to Decorate

October 28, 2010 · 9:07 pm

Love & Loathe – 10/28/10

Loathe:

* Fish drama. I know, for such “quiet” pets, there’s always something going on in those tanks. This past Monday, I arrived home from work to discover one of the large rock ornaments in the big tank (the tank that freaks me right out if something goes awry in it) had been knocked over. Presumably by the murdering male. One of the female’s eyes was injured… now I’m doing extra water changes to hopefully keep an infection from setting in. I swear, if it’s not one thing, it’s another with those fish. (sigh)
Her eye is supposed to be black…

* Orly nail polish. I bought this nail polish and was all excited because I loved the color. So, I put it on and it dried super fast, I thought that was pretty cool, and I still loved the color. Then I woke up the next morning, and the polish had fallen off! Weirdest polish I’ve ever used. Total waste of money. But… a pretty color.

Love:

My cubicle at work is coming right along. This is what it looked like this morning. I added some more stuff before I left tonight, but I was in such a hurry to get out the door that I didn’t take a picture of the changes. My competition is pretty fierce, so I’m pulling out the stops tomorrow — we’re bringing Boney Barney in. On a leash, of course, California has a leash law.

* York Peppermint Pretzel Sandwiches. Yum.

* Gettin’ sh*t done kind of days. Today was one of those, and there ain’t nothing like feeling as if you’re checking stuff off your to-do list.

* Finding stuff I thought I lost.

* My community has continued heating the pool I swim in to 82°F until November 1st. They said they were going to stop heating them on October 1st, but I guess they extended the time to November 1st instead. I’m so thankful for that. I love swimming outside, with my pool bunnies, beautiful trees, scents of plant life, etc., so very much.

One Last Thing:

Every chance I get, I remind myself to do an “in the moment” check — basically reminding myself that tomorrow will take care of itself, and to use the grace alloted to me for the day for the day I’m presently living. It doesn’t always work, but it helps.

Today I was grateful to have a half hour at lunch where I didn’t have errands to run or things to do, so I sat in my car with my devotional book and just relaxed. Sometimes I close my eyes and mentally digest what I’m reading, other times I watch the clouds puff by on the wind. Today I glanced at the side mirror on my car and was struck by how beautifully the mirror framed the scenery.

It was a nice moment.

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Filed under Love/Loathe