Thursday, August 30, 2012

30 Days of Gratitude

In an effort to get back in the habit of blogging more often, I decided to do two blog projects in September. One is "30 Days of Gratitude," and I will blog about something that I'm grateful for each day in September. I also want to do a "photo a day." If you would like to participate, just save the list and follow along. If you have an Instagram account, send me your username so I can follow you, or use the hashtag #sept12photoaday so your photos are searchable.

I imagine that the two projects will intersect, and I will be taking photographs of things that I'm grateful for, but I'm not going to specify that.

Here's my September list:







There are a lot of "photo a day" projects, apps and sites out there. I think I originally got the idea for the photo-a-day project from FatMumSlim.

I have used an iPhone/iPad app called Photo365, which makes a cool little calendar on your phone with a thumbnail of each photo, and of course, Instagram.

I also use Gratitude Journal, another iPhone app. There is also an iPad version. The app lets you record multiple things that you are grateful for, attach up to four photos, and rate your day (all my days are 5 star days). There are also various themes that you can use.

Here is the photo list in text format:

1. Home
2. Reading material
3. Family
4. Comfort
5. Morning routine
6. Hydrate
7. My hobby
8. Warm
9. Work
10. Lunch
11. Beautiful
12. Green
13. Take a note
14. Artist date
15. Gratitude

16. My obsession
17. Memory
18. Animal instincts
19. Exotic
20. Take a walk
21. Alignment
22. Time
23. Wrap it Up
24. Golden
25. Sky
26. Love
27. Bloom
28. What I carry
29. Patterns
30. Joy

Monday, August 20, 2012

Just my opinion

A friend posted on Facebook the other day that he didn't understand how other people who have full time jobs have time to go to the lake, visit friends, or have fun of any kind. He said that he and his wife spend the entire weekend from sunup to sundown cleaning the house, doing laundry, prepping food for the next week, working in the garden, doing yard work, etc.

I wrote out an answer, but didn't post it because I don't like to get into long discussions on Facebook. But here's my opinion: You figure out the things that are important to you, and that's what you do.

Of course, there are always things that have to be done -- housecleaning (to a certain extent), laundry, meals. I don't care if my house is spotless, and while I cook a "real" meal a couple of times a week, we're happy with sandwiches or leftovers, or picking up fast food, the rest of the time.

I'm sure Bob would love it if I would cook gourmet meals every night, but he understands that I need to do other things, like knit, read, sew, make jewelry. I'm happier, and he's happier as a result. I read a quote somewhere once that said, on their death bed, no one ever said, "I wish I had cleaned the house more."

If it's important to you to have a spotless house, more power to you. If it's important to you to serve a gourmet-quality meal every night, I'm not going to judge you. You can make your own salsa from vegetables you grow in the garden, and grind the wheat to make tortillas, and I'm sure they're amazing. But I'm going to feed Bob a ham sandwich, clean up the kitchen, and spend the two hours of free time I have before bedtime reading a book.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Vacation

I have four weeks of personal time a year--vacation, sick leave, personal leave, whatever I need. The only years that I've ever used it all were the years when I had surgery. I usually end up with at least a week or so unused. I had used one day this year, I think, and the year was more than half over, so I thought I'd better take a little time. Bob and I are going to take a few days and go down to the Lake of the Ozarks in October, I think, but I wanted to take some time before then, so I took last week off.

I didn't really have any plans, and I didn't go anywhere, but I made a point to go out to lunch every day, and one day when Bob was off, we went to lunch together. We went to Red Lobster, which was really kind of expensive, but as he said, we don't do that much anymore. Once in awhile is fine.

I made the rounds of the craft stores one day, and bought some new sock yarn. I watched a lot of the Olympics, cooked for Bob a couple of nights, slept in, and just basically had a pretty lazy week. Oh, and I gathered up about six trash bags full of stuff to give away. I need to call someone to come get them, right now they're lined up in the front hall. That's pretty much the only productive thing I did all week.

It was nice. And hard to go back to work this morning!