Today’s gratitude brought to you by the following:
Starbucks. Their cranberry orange scone is amazing.
An enlightening meeting with the president of my college. (I mean the college where I work.)
Sharing FML moments.
Getting my first grad class assignment done 3 days before class starts.
New school supplies. I feel like a geeky kid again.
Friday. Fridays are good.
Old Chicago beer and entertaining company.
I dream of the day I am able to deep clean my house. I realized today when I came home at lunchtime to get the allergy pill I meant to take this morning but left on the counter instead that my house smells like D.O.G. That’s something I never thought I’d say. Seriously. I actually have a very keen sense of smell myself, so I’m usually pretty aware of odors. It was a bit disconcerting to admit that I don’t notice it much when I’m home. That means either the rain storm we had last night and the accompanying humidity today are just making it seem worse than it is, or I’ve let my housekeeping go. Since I’m going for honesty here, I’m going with the latter. It’s time for proper scrubbing, vacuuming, and spraying of all surfaces.
Yet while I acknowledge that I need to do some heavier cleaning at home (this weekend!), I also have to admit that my lackadaisical attitude lately speaks to my growing tolerance and/or patience level. Puppy training has been hard. And kind of consuming. Items have been scooped off of floors and dumped on top of cabinets. Stairs have been blocked off with baby gates and become a dumping ground for shoes. Things get thrown down to the lower level and out of sight of Chance while he’s not looking and then stay there. Rugs got rolled up and set on tables. My free time at home is spent walking Chance or playing with him or watching him play with Barley, my boyfriend’s dog. We’re learning how to incorporate him into the family, so it’s necessary time spent. In the meantime, though, I still have piles of papers in my office to file. My basement is still a disaster. Clothes get washed and dried but piled in the laundry room. And dust is accumulating. There was a day when I would have been pretty bothered by getting so far off of my normal cleaning routine. But I know things will eventually get done, just at a slower pace. I need to remind myself of this sometimes in other areas of my life. Work or relationships. Be patient and plug along at what I can accomplish. Eventually it comes together.
I suspect my household will never again be quite as clean-smelling now that I’ve invited this little whirlwind of a dog into it. But when I see his little face peering out the front window when I leave or how excited he is to see me when I return, I figure it’s a good trade. Something new to be thankful for.
Lately I’ve been trying to clean up my electronic devices–mostly my phone–of unnecessary stuff, old pictures and apps I don’t use. I’ve also been cross checking my iPad since I’m never sure what is actually linked to my phone. So I opened the Notes app on my iPad to see if it had the same long list of notes (quotes, grocery lists, names) as my phone. It doesn’t. Instead, I found one note, not written by me. It said I really love you Melissa and was dated March 27, 2013. First of all, that was not what I was expecting. It was obviously not left by my kids. They’ve left me notes on my phone and they always call me Mom. Secondly, I apparently do not use my iPad to its fullest potential since I have programs and apps that I never even open up. Forsooth.
I’m not sure who left the note. Just like I’m not sure who sent me flowers on my birthday last year. I have suspicions. The curious cat in me would like to figure it out. After all, I’m the type of person who will get up out of bed in the middle of the night to check one more spot when I’ve been searching for a missing item. I like to investigate until I’ve exhausted my options and only then will I try to let it go. I think this time, though, I’m not going to expend energy wondering for too long over it. Someone loved me and wanted me to know and left me a note where they thought I’d see it. I’m sorry I didn’t find it earlier. But maybe I found it when I was supposed to, as a reminder that even though it sometimes doesn’t feel like it or it isn’t obvious, I am loved by people in my life. People other than my kids or my immediate family. That’s rather nice to hear. I think most people don’t hear I love you enough. So tonight Im thankful for the mystery message, 511 days late.
Well, I have to admit something. Lately I’ve been so tired by the time I get around to writing at night that I struggle to even get through a post. I usually end up typing up something quickly on my iPad or my phone app while sitting in bed before I fall asleep. I’m sure it’s been noticeable; I feel I should apologize to everyone who’s actually reading this regularly. I for one, really dislike bad writing, so it’s been disappointing for me too. But when I started this blog, I did it with the intent of finding at least one thing a day to be grateful for and write about, so I’ve at least kept that commitment to myself. It may not have been exciting lately, but the process still gets me to think about my day. Sometimes it really is the mundane or even repetitive things that I realize I appreciate the most. Or something random. For instance, tonight my kids and I had dinner outside. I grilled chicken and made corn on the cob and mashed potatoes from a box. (Don’t judge me. It’s good if I measure things correctly.) It was a nice evening since the humidity went down and a breeze came through. My puppy had been a nuisance during meal preparation; he acts as if he’s never been fed. Ever. Even though I give him a teeny bit more than his weight/age suggestion, he seems to want more. He had eaten his dinner, yet still did the constant jumping up on the counter with one of us with responding with the automatic Down, Chance. So just before we sat down to eat, I filled his Kong toy with peanut butter hoping to keep him occupied. That lasted only a few minutes until he realized that it may be easier to sneak food off the table. And so ensued the puppy jumping and the responding Down, Chance, once again. Eventually he quit, we finished dinner, and as we got up to leave, Chance used his ninja skills to grab the remains of an ear of corn off a plate and take off with it. My kids began to chase. He darted and zigzagged through the yard. Just as Emma almost reached him, he half swallowed the ear, slowed down enough to gag it back up and took off running again. At this point, I was just enjoying the show. As was my neighbor from his back yard. It was just like a Three Stooges episode where Emma would grab, miss, and Chance would change direction. I finally yelled out to encourage my daughter, You were on the track team; catch him! She wasn’t amused, but Bree and I and the neighbor were. The neighbor dogs were barking; Bree and I were laughing. Chance finally stopped in an effort to simply chomp the corn cob as quickly as he could, and she got it away from him as it broke into pieces. The entire episode was unexpected dinner entertainment, and I was thankful to be there as a witness.
I have a list of things for which I’m thankful today:
Classes started today, which means I get to see more familiar faces on a regular basis and my tenured faculty friends get to share in the daily grind. Although that’s probably not on their gratitude list for today.
I ordered my books for grad school. And got a North Dakota State University binder that I’m excited to use for note taking.
I had lunch with my daughter. It was just leftovers at home, but it was great because said she really wanted me to spend my lunch break with her.
My faucet replacement finally arrived! I installed it (with 3 supervisors watching, my boyfriend and the two puppies) and there are no leaks. Hot water is now functional in the kitchen again!
I did some singing tonight, which I haven’t done in a long time. To the dog. And he did not whine, cry, or bark. In fact, I sang him to sleep. I must be getting better.
My house is finally painted!! It feels good to have that off my to-do list. I’m thankful it’s done and for the help I had with it. My deadline was to get it finished by the end of summer, and since classes start back tomorrow, I’d say that met it. Now I’ll need to focus on getting organized inside the house whenever I have free time. If I have free time.
I’m thankful tonight for being reminded once again of how foolish I am.
I’m thankful the week is over and I accomplished what I needed to in order to start the new semester next week. Classes begin on Monday. I’m not necessarily looking forward to that, but I can’t stop it. I’m excited about my student workers, the updated lab space I have, and the changes I’ve made to our tutoring program. I hope it’s a good Fall.
It was another early morning. I’m thankful for my years of throwing together lesson plans on the fly because I was able to get through a day of tutor training without being fully prepared. I’m thankful for the amusing mix of student tutors and their willingness to put themselves out there. For the help I got rearranging the lab and making the space more inviting. I’m thankful for donuts and zucchini soup (not together). For laughter that makes kissing difficult. For coming home to a cleaned up kitchen. I’m grateful for the neighbor who rescued my puppy after he escaped from my fenced-in back yard. For funny texts from my mom. And for puppy snuggles, cat purrs and kid hugs. It was a pretty good day.
I was going through old photos in my photo stream and eliminating ones I didn’t need or want anymore. I love my iPhone but it seems like I run out of photo storage too quickly. I mean am I the only one who needs to carry around hundreds of photos at all times? I may need the 10 blurry shots of my moving puppy or the endless concert pictures that are mostly silhouettes or the Snarky ecards that will come in handy one day to post as a Facebook comment. It’s curious that I find it difficult to part with these photos, yet I don’t necessarily feel compelled to have them printed and put in a photo album. Maybe that’s because our worlds have become so digital. There’s a strange comfort in having everything on a small device that barely leaves our person or at the least our view. Our lives can sit, literally, in the palm of our hands. At dinner tonight my friends and I talked briefly of the evolution of technology as we teased one in our party for his lack of smart phone savvy. Most of us have apps downloaded to take us to every small bit of information we could want: emails, Facebook, banking, weather, tv, Internet…I even have my home security programmable on my phone. I can watch tv, post to my blog, listen to music, play games, and browse through my photos. I could be stuck in an elevator happily for hours if I didn’t lose phone service. Well, ok, that’s a stretch but only because I get claustrophobic. At any rate, I find our current technology amazing and am thankful to have access to it. I remember the days of Dos so my iPhone is like a piece of magic.
melissagratitude 