COVID-19 (April 9)

It has been a bright day with a beautiful blue sky… Under different conditions, we would have been jumping up and down with excitement. Alas. We have a pandemic to go through this Spring (and beyond).

Despite the negative air it carries with itself, we must find ways to appreciate and love the life we are having right now. It is possibly the best day and best life we can have compared to what we will have in the next while. It is true – we may get sick, we may get more isolated, we may experience financial hardship, and we may lose loved ones. But today we are okay. Let’s appreciate this for a moment or two.

Tomorrow will mark the 3rd week of self-isolation, working mostly from home. 3 weeks – can you imagine?

I think we are doing it. I think we get used to this new life. I think we adapt to it better than we thought we would.

What do you think?

 

COVID-19 Day 5

Can’t believe it is the 5th day.

I worked today from home, but nothing too exciting. One remote meeting, some emails, and a couple of correspondences. It was not one of those days where I would focus on something and significantly  move things. That is okay.

On the positive side; I received a couple of appreciation emails and it really made me feel great. Good vibes are amazing! Send some good vibes to others, friends.

 

On the personal side:

Interesting that I sleep well and long. This break is working for me 🙂

I cook and eat healthy food. Nevertheless, the slight weight gain is obvious and concerning…. Oh, well 🙂

I walked twice again today. In the morning I took a long walk, around an hour. It was good. We have a cool but bright day. I have seen more people walking today than before. Some people make an effort to keep around 2 meters distance between themselves and others. The majority do not. I try hard to keep this distance. Maybe as time goes on, more people will pick it up.

I saw people lining up at around a church, which I believe is soup kitchen or something. It broke my heart to see so many people lining up, and so many people in close distance to each other. Once this virus spreads to less fortunate, you know it affects them more drastically. Prayers and good wishes are on.

My stress levels are low and it is a good thing.

How long do you think we will continue like this?

Wherever you are; stay safe and well, my friends.

 

all the good things – check

more or less a positive day, which made me appreciate it.

• sleeping well and getting up only after 8 am – check

this is mostly because I am tired. So I let myself go back to sleep even though I woke up frequently at night. In the past few months, I did get up around 5 am and worked under much stress. I miss my early morning productive and distraction-free work time, but I am able to keep working during the day, so eventually all is well

• working well during the day and surviving 3 separate meetings, all with positive ends and productivity – check

it is a rare opportunity to be able to say that the meetings were productive! It was my lucky day all 3 meetings went well and progressed the issues at hand – this is wonderful 🙂

• loving my all natural gray hair and being excited about it – check

it is amazing that after 1.5 years of letting my natural hair grow, I see it healthy, shinny, and just beautiful. If somebody had said I would feel this way, I would have started the gray hair saga much earlier! I do not know any other hair style that I cherished this much. It is also amplified by the fact that I do not have bangs now, as such, my hair has a distinct, mature, and very good looking style 🙂

• being excited about my laptop case that I thrifted this weekend for only 3 bucks and carrying it around like a jewel – check

honestly it has been sometime that I was so excited and happy to have a material being. The case is the right colour, right size, and very useful. The price I paid for it makes it extra sweet 🙂

• feeling better overall and with less stress – check

this is an amazing feeling and I could not be appreciative more!

• asking for a discount and getting it for a service my organization needed – check

this is pretty awesome. I am not into asking discounts from companies for my work, but sometime it is worth it. I tried it this time and got over 1K (~20%) discount. My boss is happy, which makes me feel like positively contributing to the organization! Talking about confidence 🙂

• getting an email from a committee that I had dumped this year and learning that they desperately needed my knowledge and expertise – check

huh! how about this? 🙂

last year the person who sent this email was criticizing and pressuring me for my work related to this committee. This lack of appreciation was one of the main reasons that I had decided to leave the committee, even though I had liked and enjoyed my role in it.

I do not know what to think about the invitation. I personally do not wish to be there anymore, yet I have a sense of duty that wants me to go and benefit that committee. I think I can still be there, yet I do not plan to undertake a lot of work or an active role. With this in my mind, I will know tomorrow morning how I feel and then will respond to this invitation.

This is the second example in the last 4-6 months where people who tried to trash and insult me came back and asked for my help later. 

Is life a master of correcting bad behavior and treatment?

I would like to think so.

 

 

holidays diary – Day 12 (and the end of it :) )

Boy, we are done – back to work! 🙂

I am ready.

I have had not the usual relaxing and joyful kind of holidays break this year, but some things got done and better; I cleaned my home, decluttered and donated, shopped a few days and purchased lovely things, cut out the junk food significantly, saved quite a bit of money by not eating junk food and not taking the cab everyday to work, did light work and almost completed two important documents, socialized with friends, gifted and got gifted (all great things that I am looking forward to using), slept longer than usual, and experienced much less stress and frustration created by work and work environment. I also let go of self-imposed “must do” kind of attitude and took some house chores and personal care (like, hair cut visit) easy. This last one is quite a change in my attitude, which I surprisingly found health. Well done 🙂

I could not read a novel that I so much wanted to, but hey I can always read a novel in any of the days. So, that is cool.

I have reflected on my life in 2018, but did not plan anything new or extraordinary for 2019. I am not against resolutions. On the contrary, I like and believe in the positivity and hope they give to us, even for a short term. I can always make resolutions, so this is cool, too.

Overall; not bad, eh?

————————————————————————————————————————-

Today I meant to shop at thrift stores. We had bad weather in the morning with lots of snow, but when the bus started to work, I decided it was okay to go have a good time. I was the only one in the store and I could not find anything for my liking. So, when I saw outside, I understood why there was no one around. A new storm had just started and it was quite miserable outside. I do not know how I could make it to the cab station. Luckily it was a cabbie that I knew and the ride back to home was quite pleasant.

At the beginning it felt silly to have left the home at all, but sometimes we must try and take the chances. This is exactly what I have done. The outcome was something I did not wish for, but I have no control over the storms and I was able to make it home safely. Hence, I take it easy as well 🙂

I am relaxing this evening as well and have my itemized plans for tomorrow. I am ready to work like a golden horse again, until I become tired again. Knowing that all my efforts will be to reach my own goals, I am finding this easier to think about. Deep down, I feel that great things will happen to me this year; lots of awesome opportunities will find my way; success, health, money, respect, awards, and recognition will come to me easily; and I will continue to grow and develop personally and professionally.

I am looking forward to these.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Hope 2019 is treating you all with Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation 🙂

holidays diary – Day 11

New Year is here – welcome 2019.

I am very indifferent, as you can see. I slept around 10pm last night and woke up not so enthusiastic about the day or the year, or anything else for that matter. My moody mood continues.

Anyways; I worked today as well. I did not have anything better to do – everywhere is closed. In the afternoon, I called my family for a quick chat and then focused on finding a good book to read. I reviewed maybe 10 books before I finally found one that clicked. It is by an author who has a highly demanding job and she says all the things I want to hear or see; she says what seems unbalanced for many maybe your balance (true – I prioritize work to reach my goals, so I work hard and long. Even I got in to thinking “I should have a balance” trap, but why should I? Nothing I do is something that will keep me from my goals (except those that are somebody else’s responsibility, which I need to shoulder to keep work going). Rather, I work hard to reach my own goals the majority of the time.

Why should I complain about this? Why should I feel tired about this? Why should I feel frustrated about this? Why on earth should i feel negative about this????

My attitude is not right. Hmmm. Will seriously consider to change this around.

Never fall into the trap of believing in somebody else’s truth – find and own your own truth. That is the lesson I have learnt by reading this book today.

Funny thing is that I had this book for many years. I am glad I did not give it away. Today was its time to mean something for me. Well done.

————————————————————————————————————————-

I must work and finish things, but I think tomorrow I will rather enjoy my life. I am thinking about going to thrift stores tomorrow. I will look for books and extra-ordinary/unusual pots. It is always fun to be able to look for these items and exciting to bring one home. I do not need to spend a lot of time. I certainly do not need any of these, but I would love to enjoy my life for another day, without thinking about the 5-10 bucks I work so hard to earn. Considering that I spend around 5K each year to visit my family (yes, I am still angry with them), I think this amount of money I spend on myself is very minimal. And, I deserve what my money can buy for me.

————————————————————————————————————————-

I am in a frugal and minimalistic budget again, which is great. My plan, my very ambitious plan, is to be able to save 500 bucks from my every pay cheque – this is after RRSP and TFSA contributions. I know it is not realistic; last year I tried the same, but I was not able to save more than 400 bucks at a time, and often times I was able to save around 200-300 bucks. Nevertheless, it is okay to ask for and it is okay to hope. 

I hope 2019 is treating you with Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

 

 

 

holidays diary – Day 10

I slept in a fragmented manner but it was okay – at least I did not have urgent matters to handle today. So, taking it easy was the way to go.

Nevertheless, I am not in a good mood….

I tried to do some work before noon. I stopped and then tried again a couple of times. It is hard to do something when you are tired and then not being satisfied with it.

Anyways.

I went to grocery store to pick some swiss chard – they were wilted so I opted out for a pack of hot-dogs instead. One of my new year tradition (only as a means to treat myself) is to bake some pastry with minced beef or potato/swiss chard. I went for both this time; I cooked the beef with onion for one. I replaced the chard with hot dogs for the other, cooked with onion, boiled potato, and tomato paste, and added some cumin, black pepper, and chili flakes. Yummy, right?

No.

Mistake one was they turned out to be too salty. Mistake two was that both were too spicy. The third was that I do not know why, but rather than buying pastry sheet I decided to prepare my own, which turned out to be too thick and too dense. They did not turn out to be great, even for someone like me who would savour any food regardless of how they look or taste.

Oh, well.

——————————————————————————————————————–

You know I love my family, but I also have a rocky relationship with them, especially since my dad passed away almost 3 years ago. This is the first year that I did not call and wished them a happy new year. My sister and I have been having another boot of not-so-nice verbal exchanges lately. My heart is broken and I decided not to communicate with my family for some time. I am sure they are surprised or worried about me not showing up today, but they will get used to it.

Also, if they had wanted to reach me, they could call me.

Did they?

No.

So my consciousness is clear.

I do not wish to go visit them this year. I rather could use the time (my entire annual vacation time) and the money (required for flight) for myself…. I do not know. Maybe I could finally buy a dresser for my bedroom (I do not have any furniture in my bedroom except the bed and a small closet). Or, go visit somewhere sunny and interesting for a week or so. Or, stop worrying about not having money and rather use this money to feel a little bit secure.

When the heart is broken, nothing else matters. I want my family to care about me, respect me, and miss me. If they want it, they can find me.

This is a bitter end to this year, but maybe it is for the better. I always cared about my family as much as my conditions permitted, but I guess it is time that I rather care about myself.

The new year is the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Have a great 2019 everyone – may you be filled with joy, happiness, opportunities, and love and may you be always appreciated, at ease, and comfortable with your life, yourself, your family, and your work.

 

holidays diary – Day 9

It has been going well so far – another relaxing day 🙂

I cleaned my home today and baked two sourdough loafs. I gave one big loaf to one of my friends, who had invited me over this noon. It smelled and looked great, so my friend was excited and I was happy 🙂 I got to see some of my friends, some after a couple of years, at this social. It felt absolutely great to be catching up. One of them gave me a ride back home, for which I am grateful as well.

There is a lot of snow outside, but the temperature is mild. I nevertheless spread some salt to my entrance. Looks like the night will get chilly. I plan to get out only for a short grocery store visit tomorrow, and the rest, I plan to spend at home with baking some pastries and wishing everyone good year wishes. One person I particularly email every year is one of my boss from 20 years ago. She was the most fantastic boss one can ever asked for and each year I email her (except one year when I had forgotten – she had emailed me at that time 🙂 ).

Let’s remember that the new year will be the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

Happy Sunday everyone!

holidays diary – day 7

Today it felt more like a break and better – I am grateful! 🙂

I am going to bed late and I am getting up after 7 am – this has been one of the blessing of this break – thank you!

I am cooking and eating relatively healthy – this feels very energizing and I am kind of proud of myself 🙂

I worked nice and easy at the office (the last two days), which is amazing. It is quiet and beautiful. Not getting 50 emails a day, not having anyone calling or waltzing in my office regularly, and not rushing from one meeting to other have been feeling amazing. On top of that, the clean and organized office has been a blessing – it feels energetic, spacious, and just lovely. I am in love with my office nowadays 🙂

My home is clean, decluttered, and well organized as well. Little re-arrangements here and there have made a positive impact. It feels really lovely  🙂

——————————————————————————————————————————–

Today was very cold, with possibly -10/15 C. Waiting for the bus was not fun, but it was well worth it. I have not taken the cab in the last while and my purse feels quite rich. On top of this, I limited, significantly limited, my junk food consumption, which makes me save lots of money 🙂 I feel very abundant, now that I have tons of extra money (well, not tons of it, but you know what I mean). Shopping hence does not feel like a way to further spend money, but to treat (with healthy food) and nourish myself. Overall, these two (taking the bus and limiting the junk food) always make the most impact on my financial well-being. I hope to be able to keep going.

This being said, I always have a great frugal life in the first 6 months of the year, and then with summer I seem to open the purse. Can I make it an exception this year? We shall see 🙂 Honestly I do not have much of an alternative; my chequing account is very low and my mortgage is due renewal this year, which means I am looking at a mortgage with a higher interest. I must be keeping my money as much as I can in order to keep up with these…. This is my plan. Wish me luck!

——————————————————————————————————————————-

This year I have not posted an yearly financial well-being/net-worth post. The main reason is that I have accidentally deleted around 6 months of my recordings. Oh, well. That is alright. My net-worth has increased around 25K, mostly thanks to home equity, but my investments (RRSP and TFSA) have lost around 10-15K…… Go figure…. I am taking it easy, however. Now I may have lost money, but I have faith that over time it will increase again. I have time.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Tomorrow, I plan to visit the thrift stores again. A pot that I bought yesterday find its plant, a beautiful prayer plant I have at the office 🙂 Together, they are the most elegant  and elite decoration I have ever had in my possession. I feel so lucky and happy about them. Long live the thrift stores and all the people who donate there 🙂

I will visit 2 stores tomorrow. I shop at both of them; one being more affordable than the other, but the other one is bigger. I have no ambitions whatsoever and will just take my time to explore every inch of both of them. Who knows, maybe I will find some unexpectedly interesting stuff. Tomorrow will be my first “for my enjoyment only” day of the holidays.

Let’s remember that the new year is the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation 🙂

 

 

 

holidays diary – Day 6

My goodness – almost a week of the holidays vacation is over.

At least today was a little bit better. I went to office today and worked like 5-6 hours. It felt good. I love how my office looks now, clean, well organized, and full of beautiful plants. Honestly after 5 days at home, seeing the sky from my office window was also priceless. I felt “hopeful” :).

Then I took the donation items with me and went to a charity/thrift store. I am grateful that I was able to share my now-unneeded items with others – what a blessing. I also shopped there – I bought two blouses and two planters 🙂 One of the pots took my breath away when I saw it – again, I feel quite lucky. My new blouses are great-looking and, hey they were 50% off today 🙂 How lucky one can get sometime 🙂

I was also fortunate enough to purchase notebooks that I use so frequently. They were on sale as well. I had imagined them to be on sale and purchased during the holidays. My imagination turned to be reality today. I feel fortunate and very excited about all these positive experiences today.

On the way back home, I was thinking on the bus that I actually like my office, my work place, thrift stores, and the bus. Feeling joyful 🙂

I do not know whether it was getting out of home after 5 days, shopping and finding items that I loved, or some other mysterious thoughts that went through my mind on the way back home, but today I have felt grateful and excited about my life again. I am blessed.

Let’s remember that the new year is the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

 

holidays diary – Day 5

Hard to believe it has been 5 days already and I have not left the home other than for one or two convenience store visits.

Tsk…

Argh…

I fell like this holidays time-off is wasted. By myself of course.

I must work the next two days.

Can I at least visit the mall or something?

This is one of my weirdest holidays vacation ever…

It is not too late, however! I can turn it around.

Let’s remember – the new year is the year or Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

 

 

 

holidays diary – Day 4

Cannot believe it has been 4 days already – where does the time go?

Yesterday night I let myself to enjoy the quite and peaceful night, went to bed around 11pm, and got up at around 8 am this morning. Yuppie! It was not 5 or 6 am. It was 8 am. It felt good 🙂

Since I finished my house cleaning chore, and everywhere is closed, I decided to do some work today. It went well in the morning, kind of slow and reluctant at around noon, and then quite productive in the afternoon. This latter part was exciting -when I explore new things that increase my professional skills, I love it 🙂

I must say that today was a day of healthy diet. My breakfast/lunch consisted of sourdough, tomatoes, and coffee, and my dinner consisted of a cauliflower dish I love so much. I even drank two cups of green tea this afternoon. Healthy day indeed 🙂

I have work to do tomorrow, and then I must be at work Thursday and Friday. After that though, for 5 days I want to take a break and see some of my friends. I really would like this. I found that a way to ensure timely progress of work is giving short deadlines for myself; short deadlines, like 15 min, work wonders if I am stuck at something. So, let’s hope they will help me out this week.

With this good wished, I end today’s account.

Let’s remember that the new year is the year or Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation!

 

holidays diary – Day 3

The day was kind of wasted, or this is how I feel about it.

I meant to finish cleaning home (which I have, YAY!), get the cable technician fix my cable issues (got the appointment a few weeks back), and the go for a little shopping.

So, I waited, waited, and waited, and called the company twice, only to be told that he would show up. Well, he is 6.5 hours over due, so I do not think he is showing up. This also means that sadly I missed my opportunity to get out of home and do some shopping for my own enjoyment…. I am not only frustrated, but also fed up with that company. In a year that I want to take things easy, that may mean I am looking for a new company soon, for which I am not sorry.

The same for my VISA card – I want to change it. The hefty annual fee is not making me happy. The points I get in turn are not worth it. This bank is the only one I work with and I have been paying all the interest and shoot (intentionally changed the word here – I am a kind person and for a bank, I will not change this quality in me). Plus, this year the bank rep refused to waive my annual fee twice. Twice! He offered me another credit card from their bank, which I will gladly refuse. I will be shopping for a credit card soon and I deserve this. Thank you very much both of you the companies – you clearly sock (again, intentionally changing the word here).

——————————————————————————————————————–

Since this is the 3rd day of the holidays already and I have not done much for myself, like reflecting or reading, my feelings are exaggerated towards emptiness. I have the entire night in front of me, which I can use to my advantage. The truth is reflecting the year without reflecting about the work is not possible, and I do not wish to think about work just yet. So, for tonite, I am putting this aside as well.

I can watch a movie, I can browse the internet, I can read about plants. The usual stuff that I always do anyhow. What however interest me is to find a new topic to explore an learn. Something I have not tried before; not sewing (I shave sewn some place mats and washing clothes today, by the way – YAY again!); not plants; not books or poetry; not jamming, pickling, or baking.

Something new!

What is gonna be?

I have the entire night to figure out.

Let’s remember that the new year is the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation.

Happy nights everyone 🙂

 

 

 

holidays diary – Day 1

To my surprise, I did not sleep long and well. But one thing was always in my mind –  the new year is the year of ease, comfort, and appreciation. I believe in it!

When you get up at 6 am, what do you do? Habits are hard to break. I felt like doing some light work, which was okay.

Then I started to clean my home. From 8 am on, for 7 hours, I cleaned and decluttered the upstairs! I cannot believe how smooth and efficient it went. My home did not accumulate much of a dust this year – I am not sure whether I have been doing really well with my weekly cleaning, or the worst is yet to come, aka the first floor 🙂

I also did not find a lot of things to declutter. I am going to donate a couple of belts and purses, and some wood decoration. I was however able to get rid of my old socks (why is always one without the second in our drawers?) and a couple of old t-shirts made great cleaning clothes as well.  I gave them my thanks for serving me so well before I placed them in the garbage bag, donation box, or cleaning clothe bin. That felt good too.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

After the cleaning saga, I decided I deserved a rest and opportunity to treat myself. I did some grocery shopping and prepared myself a great carrot salad (grated, with garlic, olive oil, and roasted beef). This may be the first healthy food I have had in a while and I cannot thank myself enough for this. Food, especially healthy food, is important.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

My mind was busy with the toxic events or individuals while doing the cleaning today. I am not resisting to the thoughts as they appear. I rather let them go through. I am not feeling bad, as a result. I believe I am in the process of a change of perspective. I have realized that things may not be as I interpret them (negatively), so benefit of doubt is a good thing every once a while, and I have faith that somethings will turn around soon.

Are there people that have not responded to my request yet? They will.

Can I get de-sensitized to get and read emails from those people who have done wrong to me in the past? Yes.

Who is feeling and hurting otherwise? Me.

Do I want to continue having these feelings anymore? No.

Right on.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I will take it easy tonite. Nice and easy. Maybe a cup of herbal tea. Maybe some planning for tomorrow’s cleaning. Maybe a plan to visit the thrift stores on Monday. Things like this. I have not started reading yet, but I am sure it will be fantastic too.

So, let’s remember once again – Ease, Comfort, Appreciation. May these be all in our lives.

Have a great night everyone.

all the good things – check

 

1. sleeping well and calm – check

2. getting up at a time good enough to catch the bus on time – check

3. working well in the morning, getting stressed at noon, but keeping the work till evening – check

4. almost being finished with some work that has been on my list for so long that its heaviness has been extreme – I want it to be done. Hopefully soon 🙂 – check

5. enjoying the warm and bright day and getting a feeling of Spring – check

6. walking back to home in the afternoon – check

7. saving around 20 bucks from cab fare by taking the bus or walking today – check

8. doing grocery shopping and appreciating everything I purchased – check.

I have got a big bag of potatoes and lemons. I consume lemon quite a bit, potato – not so much. But it is more or less durable and potato meals, soup, and salad are all very enjoyable food. I am feeling good about having food the next few weeks and I feel quite abundant 🙂

9. eating fish and a big healthy salad  – check.

Lately I have been trying to award myself by eating fish or any other fried food (before someone starts about the unhealthy habit of fried food; for some reason they make me feel good the next day. once a week should be okay, right?)

10. Keeping calm – check.

It is strange to remember that in January I have had almost panic attacks. A very stressful time it was. I have come so far, slowly but steadily. I am very grateful  – check!

11. Finishing the lose ends of many small tasks and reports, and feeling energized about this  – check.

I have a number of small things to finish this weekend. Once they are done, I hope I will start bigger and newer projects. It is so exciting!  – check

12. Did I mention that I said “no” again yesterday? Face-to-face this time.

A colleague of mine thinks that she can interrupt me anytime while working alone or  with others to ask or talk about what she needs or wants. How is this acceptable? yesterday I was working in my office with a team member of mine and that person just stepped in my office and start talking and asking me things, with no acknowledgment of my team member or us being working on something. Very rude, self-centered, and selfish. I decided it was the time that I take control and indicate need to respect my team member, and I asked the person to talk later. Can you imagine? I did it! And I did not even feel bad after that!! I am on the right track, my friends 🙂 -check, check, check!

all the good things – check

1. not working like crazy and taking my time and phasing out for an hour or so at the office – check

2. sleeping well and waking up with not so many negative thoughts – check

3. delivering a very interactive presentation, connecting with the audience who was hesitant and passive at the beginning but became cozy and excited about the presentation later, and making it a memorable experience for everyone – check

4. taking a cab and making it an easy and comfy experience to pick a card for my team member who will leave soon for another job – check. I have been meaning to do this for sometime. It is strange that when we look for a nice card they are nowhere to be found. I picked a nice one that I am very happy with and wrote a nice thank you and appreciation note for her. I hope she will like it!

5. eating grapes – check

6. eating a previously frozen home-made soup – check

7. attending an odd yoga class that aims to release muscle tension and finding it one of this interesting life experiences – check. My goodness; it was a crowded class, there were a lot of people shaking, making noise, breathing aloud, and making sure that we the rest of the pack laugh uncontrollably as a result :)))))

8. looking good with a new hair cut today – check. it is strange that a hair cut can make such a positive change in our outlook and how we feel. I will remember this and will use it as a means of therapy in the future 🙂

9. Being hungry and planning to eat something in a bit. It is getting late but I appreciate having appetite – check

10. watching an old movie that I always loved and enjoying my night – check 🙂 

 

 

early Sunday morning musings

It is a Sunday 🙂 A beautiful quiet, peaceful, and relaxing morning.

I woke up early at around 5 am – my unusual habit lately.

I am smelling, tasting, and enjoying my morning coffee;

listening to classic music which I have never listened to before (change is very good);

cooking my chickpeas meal for the day (a portion will be frozen to be eaten later);

planning things to enjoy my day (getting my tax filed would be one of them);

still enjoying the memory of saying “no” to the social yesterday and being proud of myself for that;

liking the change in me and prioritizing my own needs and wellness over others (this is not being selfish – it is being responsible and caring towards myself as I am to others, who can actually do things themselves but for some reason prefer me to do things for them).

It is a beautiful day that needs to be cherished – I hope we all are having a great Sunday 🙂

gif by:https://giphy.com/gifs/sunday-wT97cWtdRWkU

 

all the good things – check

• sleeping well till 9 am – check
• having my favorite breakfast with tomato and sourdough bread – check
• opening a new canister of coffee and loving the taste and the smell of fresh coffee- check
• deciding to keep the coffee relatively fresh by taking a part of it in a jar to use and keeping the canister secure/unopened – check
• enjoying the snow outside – check
• speaking with my family and loving it – check
• getting gifted by sister and buying my wide-mouth jars – check, check, check! I have been meaning to get them for months now. I had a set purchased before the holidays and I have only 2-3 left, as I had gifted my friends with pickles but hardly any of them were returned. Now I have a new set only for my own use and I will never run out of them again (will not give them to anyone – sorry not sorry)! – check
• cooking myself a nice meal – check
• making clementine preserves (recipe here) 🙂 I have been wanting to do these for some time and today was the day! I will gift a small jar to my next door neighbors tomorrow and another small jar to a friend of mine. I will enjoy the rest (which are in my precious wide-mouth jars) – check
• working, stressful first and then turning things around and being pleased with my performance – check
• saying no to a social that involves a couple of individuals who get on my nerves frequently – check, check, check
• being proud of myself for saying “I do not want to attend this event” to another friend of mine, who though I should be attending the social. She is a wonderful person and a great friend. She was surprised to hear this from me, but she understood how busy and tired I was. It felt great to be direct and understood. I know that I will continue to preserve my time, energy, and nerves to myself by limiting my interactions with undelightful people and by not undertaking other people’s work or responsibilities- check
• enjoying the quiet night and feeling good – multi-check

 

all the good things – check

• eating carrots and an apple at the office – check
• not being stressed much – check
• working nice and easy – check
• advising three of my team members about their performances – check
• having the energy to work and keep going – check
• prioritizing comfort – check
• saying no to an extra responsibility – check
• deciding not to attend to a social I am insisted to attend – check
• finishing up some great projects and opening time for new projects – check
• aiming to re-prioritize my well being and simple/frugal life – check
• planning to visit some thrift stores tomorrow – check
• flossing my teeth – check
• feeling good about a new team member’s performance – check
• being vocal about an extra work we are imposed to by the administration – check
• drinking kefir – check
• getting a large piece of home-made cake by a colleague and enjoying it with coffee in the morning – check

 

all the good things – check

• missing the bus and walking in the morning to office – check
• treating myself with a muffin – check
• working long hours without losing focus or energy – check
• having a lunch with a friend, a very rare treat for me during the week days – check
• getting a ride back home by a colleague in the afternoon while it heavily snowed – check
• drinking kefir and loving every drop – check
• keeping calm the whole day – check
• realizing despite feeling largely like a failure, how well my projects created unique outcomes in the last one year and will continue to do so in at least the next two years – check
• feeling sleepy and getting ready for a resting night sleep – check

joy journal – Jan 29, 2018

It has been a good day.

1. I am grateful for sleeping late but waking up early. I woke up with things to do in my mind, which was overwhelming. Yesterday night I decided not to resist to this idea – after all if I resist something, the annoyance increases. I will see how well this will progress in the coming days.

2. I am grateful for taking the bus – my hero! Right on time 🙂

3. I am grateful for working with a team member of mine the whole day; we are finalizing a project of 3.5 years and she has done an amazing job. Understandably we are very excited about this. We will continue on Wednesday again, but what we have done today was a wonderful work 🙂

4. I am grateful for treating my team member to tea/coffee and snacks. These absolutely help us to have a more cozy work environment and provide some comfort while doing a serious job.

5. I am grateful for walking back to my home this evening; a first in a while. I am coming back to my routine slowly… I feel accomplished with each of these small steps; re; taking he bus, walking, not taking the cab, eating better, etc. Yay! 🙂

6. I m grateful for working at home in the evening of another report due next week. I am kind of late but have moved it very well. While walking to home I was thinking that I did not know how to fix it, but as soon as I sit in front of the computer and opened the document, it just moved on.

7. I am grateful for working at the office till 6pm, not coming home early to work, and hence stress myself further at home. Not leaving the office early to come home to work is one of these small steps that makes me feel good and makes me feel like I am back to my routine.

8. I am grateful for eating a large potato salad filled with green beauties. Very healthy and it was yummy 🙂

9. I am grateful for turning my email off while we worked at the office today. This is my second or third time doing this. I did not even missed it. What a distraction it seems… I am very proud of myself for doing this change as well.

There are a number of changes I have implemented lately and I will be happy to state them here again:

• turning off the email while working on important things
• leaving my “perfectionists attitude” on un-critical tasks
• saying “no” more often 
• motivating my team more
• eating better and healthier
• treating myself with weekly chocolates and little pastries time to time
• making an effort to work at the office, rather than at home
• supporting myself during these stressful times and showing compassion
• making an effort with positive affirmations
• making an effort to stop resisting the thoughts that annoy me
• taking the bus or walking, and protesting the cab company
• making Fridays “eat fish/meat” day – this has been going on for the last three weeks and I noticed that I feel good about this. Whether it is fish or red meat (which I rarely eat) – I am not sure. In all cases I eat a large green salad, which I suspect is helping a lot too
• believing that I have time, which reduces my stress, even though that usually means working at nights at home
• understanding myself, my needs, my priorities, and hurdles – particularly my own criticism towards myself and my work
• realizing that my daily home routine is important and without it I feel over-whelmed, stressed, and somehow absent…. It is important to spend time without thinking about work and making my mind work on rather other things to give it a break

—————————–

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

• I appreciate myself for making an effort to feel good
• I appreciate myself for eating better, pampering myself, and caring for myself
• I appreciate myself for keeping calm and focused today
• I appreciate myself for changing and improving my quality of life, especially at work
• I appreciate myself for taking time to write these, which help materialize them

 

 

joy journal, Jan 27, 2018

1. I am grateful for sleeping till past 9 am; I was surprised with this but obviously my mind or body needed this rest. So it is welcome.

2. I am grateful for enjoying my coffee and feeding my sourdough starter; it had risen well and was smelling very fresh and sourdy 🙂 Good baby!

3. I am grateful for speaking with my family and being happy altogether – what a great feeling to be happy together with the people we care.

4. I am grateful for reminding myself that I will make an attempt to not let others hurt me with their greed, unkindness, and mean and demanding attitudes. This is very important for all of us; why do we permit this kind of people or their behavior in our lives? I know at work it is important to keep these people in our circles for our work, but is there not a better way? There is. I will find it out. I am determined to keep reminding me this and make an effort to find ways to manage mean or negative people.

5. I am grateful for walking to a store and buying eggs and other items that were on sale and I had needed. It is important to be able o care for ourselves – whether this is food, exercise, or pampering ourselves, let’s do it!

6. I am grateful for treating myself with chocolate today 🙂

7. I am grateful for working on a report and then stopping to enjoy my evening. I meant to reflect and nurture myself by reading a book. I have read for a while and now it is time to chill in dark, writing my journal, and listening to music.

8. I am grateful for eating healthy with eggs, tomato, garlic, and sourdough bread. It was a light but tasty dinner.

9. I am grateful for liking my graying hair 🙂 What a wonderful feeling!

10. I am grateful for liking to care for myself; I love shopping and getting things that I need or consume; I like making my own bread and eating it with love; I like cleaning myself, my home, and my clothes; I like functioning and still kicking and never ever ignoring my own needs!

11. I am grateful for being abundant and having everything I need being available or accessible to me.

——————————

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

1. I appreciate myself for keep going and not stopping my routine
2. I appreciate myself for letting myself to be happy with my family and others
3. I appreciate myself for pampering myself with chocalate
4. I appreciate myself walking to the store even though it was a chilly day
5. I appreciate myself for eating healthy and not needing expensive or luxurious things to eat
6. I appreciate myself for realizing the progress in me and in my thinking; I learn; I realize; I appreciate; and I move on.

 

 

 

 

joy journal – Jan 26, 2018

I have had ups and downs today, but I know that writing here will make me focus on the positive and I feel better good after that! 🙂

1. I am grateful for sleeping well and waking up on time. I have not used an alarm clock for so many years that come to think about it, it is amazing that I wake up when I need it ! 🙂

2. I am grateful for taking the bus; good for my pocket, good for environment, good for the community. yay! 🙂

3. I am grateful for encouraging a team member of mine who feels over-whelmed by a new task he needs to do. I am frustrated myself that it is not done yet, but sometimes a little bit encouragement can go way above and beyond. I shall see.

4. I am grateful for coming to home in the early evening to work and getting stressed. Honestly it makes me more stressed than being at the office. So I must stop this and embrace my office full time…

5. I am grateful for starting reading and revising a long report. I have been dreading this, but I have started and it will go on. My plan is to fix it hopefully tomorrow and move on. It is a report written by three of us, two of us being seniors. The other senior and I have different approaches and different levels of meticulousness. It creates and has created problems for both of us. I want this to be over before we get more annoyed with each other and hurt our relationship further. I ask myself; why is it me who is taking it low and still do her part? Is it because I walk what I talk, or because I am silly? Do not answer that :)))

6. I am grateful for doing grocery shopping in the evening. I bought all bunch of fresh produce and also fish. I love fish nowadays 🙂 I am feeling better after eating it with a large bowl of green salad. I cannot thank enough for these food.

7. I am grateful for feeling excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday; I will first drink my coffee and browse internet for emails and news, and then clean the house. At noon I want to go shopping and take advantage of some sales in a nearby store; I would love to get some eggs, butter, and paper towel.

8. I am grateful for feeling a little bit angry about my efforts and being appreciated by others. As such, I have got more confident (or pissed off and does not care anymore). next time somebody tries to walk over me, I sure will stand taller.

———————————–

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

1. I appreciate myself for working – no matter what I keep going
2. I appreciate myself for getting more confident, knowing that I deserve a much higher level of appreciation
3. I appreciate myself for keeping my grounds – I will do that increasingly
4. I appreciate myself for being excited about shopping and the weekend
5. I appreciate myself for not getting anxious nowadays and feeling relatively better
6. I appreciate myself for eating fish and salad
7. I appreciate myself for helping others

joy journal, Jan 25, 2018

A relatively good day and I am happy to share these with you:

1. I am grateful for getting up a little bit earlier and catching an earlier bus this morning 🙂 It was a chilly morning but I just made it to the bus stop. A minute later my hero bus showed up and it really made me feel lucky and happy 🙂

2. I am grateful for having a very quiet time in the office before anyone showed up. It was beautiful and gave me much needed stress-free time 🙂

3. I am grateful for keeping calm the entire day, decluttering my office and opening space for new paperwork, relieving myself from stress induced by lots of things around.

4. I am grateful for sitting at a meeting that lasted 4 hours this evening 🙂 It is not bad for a person who has got a lower back problem 🙂 What helps in this situation is that whether it is an effective meeting with opportunities to learn something new and contribute. I have got these today so I am satisfied.

5. I am grateful for eating lots of healthy food in the office; apple and baby carrots being my favorites 🙂

6. I am grateful for changing my cab company today; yesterday one of the cabbies made me think very hard about taking the cab at all – mean people have no place in my life. While one bad apple should not make the entire batch of nice and kind cabbies bad, I felt like I must preserve my self respect. So I decided I did not want to pay another dime to this cabbie and one way to achieve this was to change the cab company. Over.

This will also give me much needed chance to stop taking cab, unless really needed, and rather focus on taking the bus or walk.

7. I am grateful for not working tonite

8. I am grateful for sitting in the dark, listening to a nice music, and writing my journal. It is “me” time, alright 🙂

————————————–

Things that I appreciate myself about today:

1. I appreciate myself for focusing on work and feeling logical and calm
2. I appreciate myself for making my self-respect a priority
3. I appreciate myself for not working tonite
4. I appreciate myself for learning 
5. I appreciate myself for keeping up with the ever changing priorities and work dynamic
6. I appreciate myself for being genuinely happy for a colleague of mine who will take a leave to recuperate after a highly exhausting and stressful work conditions – she deserves this. I wish her well.

 

 

joy journal – Jan 24, 2018

I am calm but not necessarily in the mood. I do not even now what to write here, but I trust that as soon as I start writing it, I will find things to be grateful for. 

1. I am grateful for starting this entry for today.

2. I am grateful for feeling calm, although I have things to be angry and pissed off about. 

3. I am grateful for submitting a big report today without making it “perfect”. Under normal conditions I would have spent many more hours trying to improve it. I read my report and while I could maybe do a little bit more meticulous work, it was a very well drafted and comprehensive report. So why to stress myself more? This is such a deviation from my regular perfectionist attitude. Because of the stress of heavy work load and frustration at work, I was contemplating about leaving my perfectionist practice and taking things easier. I did it today. A new path is opening in front of me. I am proud of myself.

4. I am grateful for helping my team members by giving them a ride with cab this evening – it was a miserable weather outside and we all appreciated not walking in the rain and on the ice.

5. I am grateful for enjoying coffee and muffins with a colleague this morning and having a nice chat in between.

————————————

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

1. I appreciate myself for trusting life and still standing tall
2. I appreciate myself for working till late hours – it is counter-intuitive, but when I have too many things to do I appreciate the opportunity to have time to work on them
3. I appreciate the fact that I have left my perfectionist work attitude behind – things can get only better from here. I am changing. I have changed. I will continue to change

 

joy journal – Jan 22, 2018

1. I am grateful for sleeping well. My mind got full of work-related issues and stress right away, but I made a mental note (again) to monitor what I think and let them stop if they are negative. One day I will do this!

2. I am grateful for taking the bus in the morning. What a chilly day it was today… I have not chickened out and taken the cab. Good job! 

3. I am grateful for enjoying my coffee at the office and eating two apples. Apples are good for me and they are also very delicious 🙂

4. I am grateful for working really well in the morning without much of a stress. I had a meeting in the afternoon, which went really well and gave me much needed mental break from my own work and issues (would you believe that I am grateful for a meeting? hah ha 🙂 ) 

5. I am grateful for the bus being at the bus-stop right after I left the meeting and went out of the building. It was great to take the bus in such a windy and cold evening. I am lucky 🙂

6. I am grateful for cooking for myself and eating well.

7. I am grateful for realizing that if I do work well in the office, then I do not have, to or want, to think about the work at home. This is pretty interesting. I remembered that before I started to work hard and for long hours last summer, this is what I used to do; I usually enjoyed my evenings and nights by focusing on my relaxation, reading, writing, or watching movies. I was quite content with my life at that time. Home was home. Life was good. I ate less junk food and I felt better about myself.

I contemplated on this quite a bit this evening. Since the work load is still high, I still need to work at home. I did it today and I will have to do this in the coming days and weeks (if not months). I wonder whether getting up earlier would help with this? maybe instead of 8.30 I can be at the office at 8 and use that extra time to do work? I wake up at around that time anyhow; why not to use this for my advantage? Then in the evening maybe I would have more time for myself?

I hope so 🙂

———————————–

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

1. I appreciate myself for enjoying this moment; it is quiet, I feel good, and I still have time to enjoy the rest of the night
2. I appreciate myself for making an effort to turn things around. Even I relapse, I try again. I respect that.
3. I appreciate myself for increasingly remembering that anything new at work may mean new issues for me; It may feel overwhelming (and it does), but then I may and will find solutions to them. Maybe I will fail too, but is it not how I learn and grow?
4. I appreciate myself not working right now and feeling optimistic about life and myself
5. I appreciate myself for changing or gaining different perspectives, and for not resisting to these

 

joy journal – Jan 21, 2018

1. I am grateful for sleeping well and getting up with the feeling that I care about myself and support myself with kindness, understanding, and food. Great food 🙂

2. I am grateful for baking sourdough loaves. I baked two loaves today; both turned out to be delicious. How did I start with baking bread? It is a dilemma really. I remember that my first trials were frustrating. I am glad that I did not give up.

3. I am grateful for speaking with my family. we all love cats and talking about cats make us all cheerful and happy 🙂

4. I am grateful for cooking a healthy meal for myself and eating it with lots of garlic. Garlic became somehow common in my life lately. This crunchy and tasty food is making me feel better, presumably by reducing my blood pressure. I will take it! 🙂

5. I am grateful for seeing a change in my perception of my conditions. I see the glass half full increasingly. For a person who is known to be highly critical and skeptical, this is a wonderful change that has naturally come to my life.

For example:

I complained about my work a lot, but what if it is the best job for me for now? What if it is better than other alternatives I may have had should I have made different choices? I may have a stressful patch at work, but it is a meaningful job that allows me to contribute, create, train others, and learn. It also comes with a great salary. Although my salary is eaten up significantly by the taxes and extra taxes, it is still good enough to let me pay my mortgage, have an abundant life, and invest for my future. These may not be as much as I wanted them to be, but when I think that it could have been worse, I can do nothing but appreciate and like it…

The same thing with the city I live in. The economy may not be good and the future does not looks prosperous here, but it is a small and safe city with a very simple life. What if it could have been worse? Full of crime, traffic, and complications? I am indeed lucky to be living here.

Thus, I may have been going through a hard time, but it could have been much worse. I am grateful for realizing this.

6. I am grateful for being kind to myself.

————————————–

Things that I appreciate myself for today:

1. I appreciate myself for eating better, drinking kefir, eating fruits, cooking healthy food, and baking my own bread
2. I appreciate myself for seeing the positive out of the negative, even though it may not be visible at the beginning
3. I appreciate myself for exercising my right to say “no” the other day and having no negative feelings about it, which says that it was the right thing to do
4. I appreciate myself for taking time to relax this evening after days of non-stop work
5. I appreciate myself for getting excited about my plan to shop next Saturday
6. I appreciate myself for exchanging nice words with someone I know and feeling elated about it
7. I appreciate myself for working on my issues; I know I am angry deep down. I will find out why and I will release it
8. I appreciate myself for mentally supporting myself when I feel like things are too much and I cannot handle them
9. I appreciate myself for being ready for a busy work day tomorrow. I know what I will do and I am confident that I will do well 

 

 

joy journal – Oct 1, 2017

1. I am grateful for sleeping well and waking up in relatively good mood. I am feeling better today, with no obvious negative thoughts or stress. Lovely 🙂

2. I am grateful for my coffee 🙂 This drink is a great start to day, waking me up and giving me an instant satisfaction and pleasure. It is great that we have means to prepare coffee anytime anywhere at an affordable price.

3. I am grateful for cooking chick peas 🙂 I had put around a pound of peas in water yesterday. I was not expecting them to cook in 30 min 🙂 My mom was right – if you simmer them after they start to boil, it helps them to cook faster. Counter-intuitive, is it not? But give it a try. I am sure you will be surprised as much as I was 🙂

4. I am grateful for baking two great sourdough loaves today. I feel abundant and joyful. 

5. I am grateful for working at home, nice and easy. I could not as much as I wanted to do, but I have done good. This takes some of the stress away from me.

6. I am grateful for not chickening about a document I am reviewing. It is a kind of critical document that requires my full attention. I cannot make a mistake, or ignore a detail. It has been going well, knowing that I am doing my best and it is pretty good. My experience with this document helped me to develop some kind of confidence in my ability to handle critical assignments. There happened in me some kind of acceptance that it was difficult, can have significant negative consequence should I not do a comprehensive and thorough review, but it was what it was. An opportunity to grow.

7. I am grateful for the kefir cheese I made from kefir yesterday and today. It is healthy and tasty. Both my sourdough bread and kefir cheese seem to be resistant to microbial growth, which is quite pleasing.

8. I am grateful for my internet connection and computer that make my life easier and fuller.

9. I am grateful for getting used to silvery tone of my hair. Right now I do not feel like I am old. Who knows what I will feel tomorrow, but I will take this positive thought right now.

10. I am grateful for the safe home and neighbourhood. It is quite and peaceful. The only noise I can hear is from my internet and keyboard.

11. I am grateful for having the night to myself.

12. I am grateful for speaking with my family today. They are always nice and supportive.

13. I am grateful for feeling courageous today. I needed this feeling.

14. I am grateful for the gray weather that helped me to stay at home and work.

15. I am grateful for making beet pickles yesterday 🙂 I thought they would take a lot of time, but I was wrong. This is my second or third time making them. I noted the ingredients and their measurements (that my mom told me) to help me in the future.

16. I am grateful for my notebooks, pens, and paper that make me write on. Writing always relaxed me. Like this moment, even though it is an electronic text.

17. I am grateful for all the food I have in my fridge and pantry.

18. I am grateful for having no pain today.

19. I am grateful for being grateful and taking my time to note these here.

———————————————

Things that I appreciate about myself:

1. I appreciate the fact that I keep going, no matter what
2. I appreciate the fact that I am not scared of difficult tasks
3. I appreciate the fact that I keep a quiet life
4. I appreciate the fact that I keep my contact with my family
5. I appreciate the fact that I cook simple but healthy food the majority of the time
6. I appreciate the fact that I enjoy the scenery of my yard
7. I appreciate the fact that I make an attempt to keep my home clean
8. I appreciate the fact that I always take at least 2 hours per day to chill down and relax
9. I appreciate the fact that I am a good friend and ready to help my friends
10. I appreciate the fact that I have been kind to myself nowadays
11. I appreciate the fact that I floss and enjoy it!

 

 

 

 

more pictures of the lives in my yard

Following a previous post, here are additional pics from the plants in my yard.

They are magical.

joy journal – May 2, 2017

1. I am grateful that I dreamt yesterday night. I cannot remember what it was but I believe that dreams are a way of my subconscious mind working and expressing itself. It is supposed to be healthy, so all is good 🙂

2. I am grateful I woke up early and I was okay with it. Friends; I keep getting up before 8 am and that feels really weird. I mean, when I was young nobody could make me get up before 9 am, and now I am up at 7 am?? What is up with that? 🙂 And what is next – will I get up at 6 am, brew my coffee in dark, have breakfast, and then leave home for work? This… has…never..happened… Never! Cannot happen… Can it? 

3. I am grateful that weather was nice and I was energetic so I walked to office in the morning 🙂 It was a relaxing walk, as usual. There is something very satisfying about starting the day with something as nice and beneficial as walking; I keep telling myself it is healthy; good for my bones, muscles, cardiovascular system, my mind, and emotions. In addition, by not taking the cab or the bus, I demonstrate self-sufficiency 🙂 These are all great things, right? 🙂

4. I am grateful for brewing my coffee at the office. I could not achieve my Spring plans of reducing the amount of coffee I drink yet. In contrast, it looks like I developed a tendency to drink more…. Argh…. At least though, I am drinking also tea (the original idea was to replace a part of coffee with tea…). Perhaps soon I can cut coffee… Who knows?

5. I am grateful for working between 3 different meetings today. I was actually overwhelmed by the amount of work I must do – so at the afternoon I was rather lost and not focused. But between 4-5 pm, I have worked quite efficiently. This feels good.

6. I am grateful for organizing for a social with my current team and past members 🙂 I am really looking forward to this lunch next week, which excites me. One of my favorite past team members emailed me and gave me some great news about her career. I am so proud of them. All of them were great and brilliant people. I hope they will always have great jobs and be surrounded by awesome people.

7. I am grateful for eating healthy this evening. Have you tried cabbage salad? Since I am  a lazy person it fits me well; basically I shred cabbage and season it with olive oil and salt. Voila – it is ready! 🙂

8. I am grateful for my clothes, shoes, and boots that keep me warm and make my life easier.

9. I am grateful for having internet connection, a great computer, and this blog-space that make it possible for me to explore, read, learn, interact, and write 🙂

10. I am grateful for being grateful 🙂

———————————–

What do I appreciate myself for today?:

I appreciate myself for not reacting negatively to getting up early in the morning

I appreciate myself for making a consistent attempt to eat healthy

I appreciate myself for collecting the garbage in the yard 

I appreciate myself for walking and not spending a dime today

I appreciate myself for being kind to myself today

 

joy journal – March 31, 2017

I am not good at writing my joy journal this year…… I believe this is my only the second post in 2017.

I am the best person to know that writing this journal is one thing that always made me feel better, more hopeful, and joyful.

So, why is this neglect lately? Was I too joyful so that I did not need to write it, or was I not joyful at all so I did not even bother writing?

The answer is neither.

I was slightly down; that is for sure. Work has had some stressful & pissing moments in February and March. But other than that many great things happened, almost on a daily basis.

I was just lazy, I would say.

Now is a good time to break this pattern and start being and benefiting from being grateful.

——————–

1. I am grateful for being safe and sound in this stormy day. I was not hurt, fell, or got washed out by the rain or pushed around by the wind. 

2. I am grateful for my home standing tall, strong, and safe in this weather. This year we have had quite a bit of winter with lots of wind and snow. And now we are having rain. But the house has been great with no problem at sight. I am very thankful for this.

3. I am grateful for deciding to remove from my work list those that drag me down emotionally. Whether they are the unnecessary tasks or people, I say “no” more often now and it feels good. I will keep doing this as long as it serves me best.

4. I am grateful for all the food I have in my house. 

5. I am grateful for having the night to myself. It is quite peaceful to have no one around. 

6. I am grateful for having the energy and feeling good about myself. 

7. I am grateful for eating fruits today and enjoying them.

8. I am grateful for feeding my sourdough starter this evening. I hope to make a dough tomorrow and bake a loaf on Sunday, as usual. This weekend, I will also have a loaf or two with commercial yeast to give to my colleague who gave me a ride this evening. I do not necessarily like getting favors without giving something back, especially from those people who I have no close friendship. For some reason, when someone who is not a close friend of mine offers me this kind of help/kindness, I have a hard time accepting it gracefully. Old habit… And bread sounds great – I am sure they will enjoy. And I will feel even.

9. I am grateful for the movie I am watching; my internet connection; my computer; my power and heating; my phone line; my furniture; shoes/boots and clothes and everything else I have at home. All is necessary or useful, and well liked. 

10. I am grateful for reading and enjoying reading; whether it is books or browsing on the internet. But learning is the best thing a mind can relax and grow into. I have so many opportunities to do so that I am loving my life very much right now 🙂

11. I am grateful for re-starting my joy journal and being grateful 🙂

———————————————

Added after the post:

I forgot – as of Jan 2017, I also would like to note at least 3 things that I appreciate about myself. Here is today’s list:

1. I appreciate the fact that I am not a cheap person
2. I appreciate the fact that I can say “no” now
3. I appreciate the fact that I make an effort to keep a simple, peaceful, healthy, and meaningful life
4. I appreciate the fact that I am more focused on my own well being at the office
5. I appreciate the fact that I have simple but effective/meaningful hobbies, like reading, writing, listening to music, or watching movies
6. I appreciate the fact that I have a character and its genuine – what you see is what you get
7. I appreciate the fact that I make a good effort to eat at least one type of raw veggie per day – it is essential for losing weight (for some reason, it does work for me..)
8. I appreciate the fact that I am resourceful
9. I appreciate today especially the fact that I am writing on my joy journal and also making this “self-appreciation corner” an integral part of it 🙂

Yay!! 🙂

I have everything I need

I spend the New Year`s Eve as I wish it; at home and in peace.

I have found time to reflect in between the clogged toilet and my efforts to fix it; talking to my lovely family and enjoying every minute of it; and baking and eating my traditional meal of beef pie 🙂

I also have had negative thoughts crossing my mind (mostly because of the irritation some people gave me recently), feeling like sh.t sometime as a result, and also watching a horror movie just out of curiosity while I am also scared to watch it :))

It is a mental judo to deal with negative thoughts and annoyance; I easily pay attention to them, so they are usually very, very annoying. But when they become too much of an annoyance, the moment I make a conscious decision to not react to them, I find peace. I love those peaceful moments.

My reflections nowadays have made me realize that I have everything I need in my life; my family and their well-being; my own well-being, my job, salary, and financial independence, and meaning and hope in life. I am content with where I am and with my life, character, mind, and heart. I like myself and what I have become, and I love my family.

For the first time in a very long time, or perhaps even for the first time in my entire life, I feel whole, content, lucky, blessed, and satisfied all at the same time….. I should thank for my efforts, love and support of my family, and all the people and things that in a way constituted my life and helped make me who and what I am.

I especially thank those people who annoyed me with their unfair and unkind behaviors and ridiculous characters that make me realize how good-hearted, mature, kind, and genuine I and the people I care about are. It feels great to credit myself and others in my life who are awesome. This would not be possible without having annoying, selfish, ridiculous people in my life. They annoy, yes, but I now gained from this annoyance and it is priceless 🙂

Like anyone else, I strive for feeling better, having better life experiences and physical, emotional, and financial health, accomplishing my dreams, or just going thru the demands of life and work without losing my mind 🙂 There are many bumps along the way; I too have suffered by set backs, losses, emotional damages, bad people and circumstances, and my own inexperience and mistakes. Yet, here I am at mid-40`s that is perfectly fine with the imperfect world and life.. Even if this turns out to be a short-term thing, I am grateful that I have both thought and felt this way today...

Perhaps it is really true what they say; that we should sit and do nothing for some time. Then we remove all the rush and demands of our lives and find our true core. That life is life, with all the ups and downs. And we constantly strive to make it better as we wish it. And sometimes, just sometimes, we realize that we actually have everything we need among all the struggles, plans, pain, and laughter…

I hope you too will find this moment of peace and realize what a blessing your life is 🙂

Happy New Year!

the 9th and the 10th day of the staycation

Well.. Well… Well..

It has been 10 days already 🙂

Well. Yesterday I shopped fabric just to feel good about myself, but honestly it did not help 🙂 That is okay. Fortunately a friend of mine called, I mentioned her that I was feeling like I have had tons of things to do, she said that I am too fixated on this and should rather relax and enjoy my time (she was working), I realized that was totally the truth and decided that I should quit being a drama queen. And I invited them over for a lunch today.

It was a fine day 🙂 I did not get crazy about cooking, all meal was loved and consumed, we have had a relaxing afternoon, and we even sewed together 🙂

The lesson is that sometimes even those that we do not appreciate enough can see the plain truth and tell us what it is. Then the entire fog miraculously lifts and brightens our day.

In the new year, try giving chance to those that you may not be 100% of fond of – maybe they will see your truth better than you do 🙂

 

getting back to aims and plans

I love to have aims and plans to tackle them. There is something exciting and energizing about this.

I am not always successful in my aims or plans, but, hey, I will try as many times as it takes and as much as I can enjoy.

The majority of my aims are around similar themes; having a financial plan; having a simple yet non-routine life; and having a healthier life-style.

I will focus on details later but the particular areas of my life that I would love to work on real soon are:

1. getting a much leaner budget and getting rid of the extra expenses for good
2. making an extra payment to mortgage till new year and increasing my payment after that sometime. My very ambitious plan is to drop it to 100K in 3 years. Likely not gonna happen but whatever I can do is good
3. eating healthier and losing 25 pounds and keeping it off
4. having a vacation somewhere this year only for my own enjoyment
5. having a less stressful work life and dealing with work and emotions better
6. being more social
7. baking the perfect loaf
8. decluttering the house and the office again and possibly again
9. buying a new set of plates
10. being more aware and appreciative of my surroundings, life experiences, and everything else in life 🙂

They are there for a reason

poem

—————-

there are ties that we don’t break

they are there for a reason

maybe it is love, maybe just a flake

like appreciation or the pleasin’

 

when the time is up, the line drops

one by one in the season

maybe genuine strength maybe just luck

like the Fall sun or the healin’

 

—————-

All rights reserved.  © https://lifeasiinterpret.wordpress.com/

 

abundance

Longing for abundance?

Go thru what you have in your home, office, car, or life first.

Make a list; itemize everything; it helps you to find out what you already have, what you had forgotten you have had, what you do not, what you need, and what you do not need. While you are at it, declutter too. When you are done;

1. Appreciate what you have
2. Use what you have
3. Donate whatever you do not want/need anymore- help others
4. Exchange them with family and friends – mend each other’s needs
5. Re-purpose; cut out that shirt, curtain, shorts and make cleaning clothes – mop the floor, clean the doors/windows, wipe the rugs, sew a mat, scarf, tote, napkins, or toys for a kid or a pet; use the glass jars and other containers to store your dry food, spices, and other food; replace the old mat with a new one you found somewhere else at home
6. Save items for later use (make sure to remember their existence and try not to hoard)
7. Sell them
8. Put whatever cannot be used, donated, exchanged, re-purposed, saved for future use,  or sold into garbage or a collection unit
9. Give priority of use to those items that you have had forgotten you have had. This is not only good for perishable items, like food, but anything else – since they were not around for sometime, using them can enrich your life if you like change, make you feel like you just have gained an item for free,  or a need filled with no effort or funds

Abundance comes from knowing and feeling what you already have.

Remember to thank for whatever you have.

a quick thank you note

Today I have reached 700 followers..

Wow! 🙂

Thank you each one of you and I hope you will continue to enjoy my future posts. As you know I write on a variety of topics – from frugality to decluttering; from life to work; from philosophy to human pain and love; from poems to short story attempts, and many others. Nothing particular indeed ! 🙂

I sure enjoy writing honest and modest posts and interacting with you. I am amazed how supportive, wise, and humorous some of us can be. I feel lucky.

Stay safe and happy. Best.

feeling lucky again

I lost my reading glasses while returning back from an appointment. The moment I realized this, i first check everywhere at home and then decided to walk back to the appointment place. I was worried because while I have another pair, the lost was the one that I like and am comfortable with.

So, I left home and walked only 20 meters and there they were! Right in the middle of the road! I affectionately picked my glasses up, cleaned and put them where they belong to 🙂

I am grateful for finding it so easily and undamaged. It could have been somewhere I could never find; it could have been picked up by someone else; or it could have been run over by a car and broken. Yet, it was not.

Perhaps it is true that sometimes happiness occurs when we get something back, which we have not appreciated while in our possession/life, even though it deserved it well.

 

joy journal – June 5, 2016

1. I am grateful for sleeping well and getting up to welcome the new day

2. I am grateful for buying myself an nice cup of coffee

3. I am grateful for talking with my family and having a good laugh 🙂

4. I am grateful for taking the bus and shopping at the mall. If I have not been on budget in the last one year, I would have taken the cab and paid of an additional $30 for the two cab rides (to and from the mall). I am so proud of myself not doing this anymore 🙂

5. I am grateful for the napkins, freezer bags, and jars I have bought for myself 🙂 One of the glass jars is red and the other is purple. They are the cutest jars I have ever seen 🙂  I am so lucky that I have found them 🙂

6. I am grateful for all the gifts I have bought today.

7. I am grateful for eating yogurt today. I have not been eating much lately even though I am usually a regular yogurt-consumer. I like the fact that I am back to eating this healthy food in the last two days 🙂

8. I am grateful for appreciating everything I have in my home. Everything works just fine and they are so nice to have around.

9. I am grateful for water!

10. I am grateful for flossing and brushing my teeth- good to help my body keep healthy 🙂

11. I am grateful for binge-watching a TV show today 🙂

12. I am grateful for being excited about an apple-cinnamon cake I am planning to bake next week 🙂

13. I am grateful for reading all the interesting and tasty recipes; especially about bread 🙂

14. I am grateful for my books, my pens and notebooks, my kitchen items, my food, my furniture, my TV, my computer, my cable and internet service that make my life safe, nourishing, and entertaining.

15. I am grateful for feeling better this weekend. Yesterday and today were really cool, with little attention given to work. I cleaned my home, cut the grass, aerated my home on both days, shopped, baked my first empanadas, and relaxed. It is as if I do not wish tonite to end, but that is not a realistic wish. Like anyone else, I will go to work tomorrow, take care of stuff, drink coffee, and return back to home in the evening. And at night, I will enjoy my life by reading blogs and watching TV. That sounds like a nice plan 🙂

16. I am grateful for being grateful and taking my time to note these.

 

things that make me happy

After occasional yet permanent rants of mine about the negativity and tiredness around the issues, work, and other stuff in my life, I have prepared “a list of things that make me happy“.

It is good to remember these as I have a tendency to dwell into negativity. Once I started writing this list, it grew pretty fast. I am very pleased with this activity and reminding myself about all the things I have and I do not have (such as sickness or unsafe conditions).

I must acknowledge the support and motivation by NinaSusan about this activity; her question in a comment to one of my posts drove me to post the list – so appreciated 🙂

 

THINGS AND PEOPLE THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

Work:

working nice and easy and taking care of stuff make me happy

coming up with new ideas makes me happy

recognition of my efforts and projects makes me happy

having a great office with windows, great view, and functional furniture makes me happy

being able to brew my coffee in my office makes me happy

flexibility around my schedule makes me happy

being professional makes me happy

being usually tough when faced with adversary or bad attitude makes me happy

having a great salary and benefits makes me happy

having a small salary increase every year makes me happy

having a relatively stable and respected job makes me happy

training and teaching young professionals makes me happy

being creative and resourceful makes me happy

working with great people makes me happy

being highly productive makes me happy

insisting on good quality work makes me happy

 

Family:

having an awesome, supportive, thoughtful, and loving family makes me happy

these people being safe and sound makes me extra happy

 

Home:

having a yard makes me happy

having a large house with functional rooms and kitchen/bathrooms makes me happy

having minimal and functional furniture makes me happy

having a computer, TV, cable, and internet makes me happy

having many books to enjoy makes me happy

my spices make me happy

having a house with large windows and sunlight exposure makes me happy

being safe makes me happy

living close to downtown makes me happy

being close to my work place makes me happy

being close to bus stops makes me happy

being close to restaurants, second hand bookstore, and grocery shops makes me happy

having an old house, which forced me to save more aggressively, makes me happy

 

Finances:

having a  good salary makes me happy

having insurances makes me happy

having a healthy chequeing account (i.e. not negative) makes me happy

having an RRSP account and maximizing it in the last 10 years makes me happy

having a TFSA account as an emergency fund makes me happy

having a retirement plan and investing every year makes me happy

spending much less than before makes me happy

removing two significant costs from my life makes me happy

being abundant makes me happy

having future plans for investment and mortgage payment makes me happy

having cash in my pocket makes me happy

being generous with my friends and people I work with when needed makes me happy

stocking up durable items when they are on sale makes me happy

seeing the positive difference that my budget makes in my finances makes me happy

 

hobbies, life-style, and others:

coffee makes me happy

baking bread and experimenting with yeast and dough makes me happy

reading and buying books make me happy

peanut butter makes me happy

no food waste policy of mine makes me happy

decluttering makes me happy

shopping makes me happy

spending time with good people makes me happy

watching TV shows or movies makes me happy

listening to music makes me happy

writing makes me happy

reading blogs on interesting topics makes me happy

supportive people/friends/co-workers/bloggers make me happy

walking and sweating makes me happy

eating healthy makes me happy

eating oranges, avocado, water melon, and berries makes me happy

eating carbs makes me happy

having great memories makes me happy

national or international trips makes me happy

being at the airport and leaving everything behind makes me happy

having useful stuff at home and using them till they are worn and thorn makes me happy

using cleaning clothes rather than paper towels makes me happy

nice scents makes me happy

my perfume and hand-soap makes me happy

the scent of my shampoo and conditioner makes me happy

my floss makes me happy

having an adequate amount of clothes makes me happy

my sun-glasses makes me happy

not eating too much and losing, however slowly, and looking better make me happy

my annual vacation with my family makes me happy

resolving issues makes me happy

my pens, notebooks, and scrap papers make me happy

my slippers make me happy

my fluffy socks make me happy

my office snacks make me happy

gifts I receive makes me happy

doing light weight training and seeing my muscles developing makes me happy

having an almost minimalist life-style and furniture makes me happy

sunlight makes me happy

anticipation of the seeds I planted in the yard blooming makes me happy

having a good sleep makes me happy

taking the bus makes me happy

having a nice hair cut makes me happy

my functional purses makes me happy

my loyalty cards and the points I use for useful items make me happy

being kind and helpful makes me happy

my new water jar I use at the office makes me happy

frozen food in my freezer makes me happy

weekends and taking time away from work makes me happy

having no critical disease or condition makes me happy

my nice dentist/doctor makes me happy

my imagination and determination make me happy

my resilience makes me happy

………..

 

The list is really long 🙂

 

I am grateful for my financial choices

I have chosen to do something about my finances last year as the weight of home-ownership as well as negative chequeing account made me depressed, hopeless for my future, and hugely anxious.

I knew that unless I have had a hard look at my finances, these feelings would continue and I would experience further financial hardship.

So I made the choice of doing something about the situation and started a budget, where I calculated and monitored my fixed (e.g. mortgage, bills, etc.), flexible (grocery and other purchases, entertainment), and savings and investments for my retirement. I failed many times to keep up with my budget but eventually it stabilized. My spending was more conscious and wiser. I have had shopping freezes for items like books. I took advantage of loyalty points and followed sales. I still was taking the cab and wasting money, but hey, that was what I could do best at that time. Eventually things got better, but not perfect. Nevertheless, it was a small victory.

Then, I decided I could do way better. In the new year, I have aimed for a tighter, smaller budget that forced me to be better with my spending and better with my choices. I started price comparison and followed the sales more closely. I designed my meals around the produce on sale. I stop taking the cab and started taking the bus almost all the time. I traded one expense/product for another, more enjoyable or useful alternative. I never, even once, forgot to reward myself. I listened to my feelings and saw I was happy and excited. I saw that I was able to save way more than I can imagine with the new budget. I decided I liked savings and I paid my gratefulness everyday. For some miraculous way, I never felt deprived. In contrast, I have been feeling empowered, abundant, free, and able.

My choices and feelings have a huge role in my current financial status. I cannot know what the future will bring, but I know whatever I am doing it is working for me so far. I have wiser choices and more satisfaction, and less anxiety over the finances. It did not come with occasional fails, but that is a part of any journey. What matters is that I have seen my own progress and it made me excited and more motivated.

I think it is important that we find ways that work for us. I think it is also important to record and monitor our goals and our progress.  Additionally, I think it would be dry and somehow demotivating if we have not rejoiced our progress or achieving our objectives. So, give yourself the chance to celebrate your financial choices and progress.

I am lucky that I have a simple life, I am not materialistic, I do not bend in the presence of peer pressure, I do not have a car or wishes for luxurious items or vacations. I do not mind shopping items at thrifty stores if they are in good conditions and in good hygiene. I do prefer to shop whenever I visit another city or country, where things are cheaper than where I am. I am lucky that my feelings give the motivation I may need to keep going. I like these about myself and my life.

Maximizing the value of our dollars is a very valuable choice. I do not use coupons (I am not against them, just cannot have time to find and use them), but sales, price check, and the loyalty points all made it for me. Would it not be wonderful if we had bought the laundry detergent half of its price? It would be. So if I can, I stock pile durable items while they are on sale. I cannot believe how much I am saving this way. In terms of food, the pantry items and dry food proved to be awesome (i.e. much cheaper than prepared meals), and so did the frozen meals and veggies I learnt to prepare myself. I regularly freeze my extra meals and consume them later when I do not feel like cooking.

Freezing food and being conscious about my spending also helped me to limit my food waste, for which I am extremely grateful.

And over time, I noticed that I did not need to spend money to feel good. I rather felt good with my choices, the funds accumulated, and the hope and empowerment I have got as a result. This requires a daily reflection and being in touch with my finances and feelings. A good way to spend 5 minutes each day to monitor my finances and a good way to calculate the increase in my net worth every two weeks on the day I get my salary.

I am extremely grateful for this new found freedom and appreciation I have. Like any other achievement, it started rough and was somehow as a struggle at the beginning, yet keeping going seems to be the best way. I also appreciate and am thankful for all the fellow bloggers who support and share useful tips and experiences that made this journey a pleasure.

I also thank myself for being candid with my financial situation, for writing about my journey in my blog, and making my finances, savings, expenses, and budgeting a daily, organic, evolving, and pulsating part of my life. I hope I will be able to go ahead like this for some time and keep these positive feelings towards my financial situation.

thanking myself for my life style

Self-appreciation is something we do not even think about, but we all deserve big time.

I have many things to celebrate and appreciate about myself, work, character, life-experiences, and resilience. For this post, I will just focus on my life – style. Specifically, for its being simple and cost-effective.

here are the things I come up that makes me quite satisfied about my life-style:

1. Having no car: True that it may be restricting my mobility, but that does not apply to me. I have other means (walking, taking the bus, or flights) to go to places. I do not have to buy or lease one, I do not have to pay for the insurance, I do not have to apply for a parking permit to the city or pay for a parking spot at work, I do not need to look for and pay for parking space in the city, or I do not have to maintain or pay for repairs/replacements.

I am not arguing against having a car or two. Having a car is a necessity for many people, especially those who commute, or have kids to transport to schools or activities, or those who live away from their work places. I also know that it is a must for many where there is no public transport (like many cities I know in the USA).

My monthly transportation expenses, assuming that I take the bus or walk, are around $25.

Just by looking at that amount I now realize how easy it is for me to save…

2. Brewing my own coffee at the work days: I have been brewing my coffee at my office in the last 7 years. There were occasional buys from the cafeteria, but that is pretty much it. I am not sure how much I am saving by this habit, but considering I drink around 4 cups of (light) coffee per day, it must be quite so. A large can of coffee (~$10), 300 grms of coffee mate (~$3), and 200 grms of sugar (~$1) are enough to brew coffee for two weeks.

Can I guess how much I am saving compared to buying 2 cups of coffee/work day from Tims, for example? I think I can:

$3/per day x 5 work day = $15 per week. $60 per month. $120 per two months. Based on this calculation, I am saving around $50/month only from coffee…

3. Not eating out frequently: Since I started my budget last June, I limit it to maybe one or two times a month. Sounds pretty good to me. I used to eat out at least once or twice a week prior to that.

4. Having simple and low-cost pleasures:

   a) My weekends almost always include a morning coffee and bagels at a cafe. This is my signature pleasure – I must have them! 🙂 Honestly, I do not mind giving $6-10 per weekend to them.

   b) Over 90% of my books are second-hand books, purchased from second-hand book stores or the thrifty sores.

   c) I do not eat dessert or meat regularly, or buy food from convenience stores. The last one is mostly because there are 2 grocery stores within 10 min walking distance to my home – I am lucky.

   d) I live alone and I cook for only myself. And if you follow my blog, you know that I do not like to cook… For myself, I cook simple things and salads are my favorites in addition to soups. At the work days, I do not have breakfast and lunch is usually a canned fish or other snacks like trail mix. I am aware that this is not an healthy eating style. So please go ahead have your own delicious meals regularly as you need them, as you wish them. This is how it has been for me for decades and I guess that is what works for me.

   e) I am not interested in fashion and I often buy clothes and shoes when they are on sale. Holiday sales are my favorites. When I travel to other countries or cities, I shop there too, which are often much less expensive than where I am.

   f) Using internet for both entertainment and learning: I am very happy with my computer and internet connection. every evening and night, these give me a chance to read blogs and articles on the net, and watch TV series/movies. being content with these is something I must truly celebrate.

5. Exploring international stores and other small businesses: I can find many food, diverse food, at a reasonable cost in these stores. There is one close to my home where the spices, oriental sauces, pickles, canned beans, noodles, legumes, and olives are way cheaper than the stores. Many of these items I cannot even find in the big chain grocery stores. Plus, there is a pride and satisfaction coming out of supporting small business owners. Win-win situation in so many different ways.

6. Not hosting dinners at my home: Again, I am not arguing against this.. As a matter of fact, it is sad that I do not do that. Main reason is the fact that cooking for my lovely guests is an incredibly stressful event for me (only because I usually mess one or two dishes each time…). Maybe once a year or so, I will have my good friends over – but that is it. They understand and I am glad they do.

7. Not comparing myself with Jonases and giving up upon peer pressure: i do not do these. I do not need to have the latest computer or the TV, nor the cellular phone. I time to time get talks from friends about how I need to replace my old TV or replace my phone etc, but I do not give in. Give me a break. It is my life. I will replace my stuff when I need or want them. Not when the others suggest. I hope you do not have such toxic people in your life.

8. Vacations: I take one vacation per year and that is to visit my family. I do that every year and I am glad I do that and I am financially capable of doing that. My friends from other cities and countries invite me to their places, for which I am really happy and touched. If I had more vacation time or more funds at my disposal, I would love to do these visits – they are truly lovely and nice people. But I made a decision long time ago that my family had more priority over my friends. And I am glad I have done that, as now that my father passed away, I am glad I have seen him every year in the past decade or so, or before that whenever I could make it.

 

I am sure I have a longer list of experiences and choices to appreciate. Perhaps at another post.

I am sure you have many thing to appreciate about yourself. I would like to encourage you to find and appreciate those choices you have that enrich your life without breaking your bank account or psychology.

cheers 🙂

 

random thoughts

There is something nice about finding in myself the right to fully enjoy this evening and night after a highly productive work day 🙂

I love such days; during the day energy and effort is needed but eventually somethings are taken care of and that creates an incredible satisfaction. Especially if they are lingering tasks (which I have many in the last one year or so) or critical and with positive outcomes. These days should be celebrated to acknowledge and reinforce the satisfaction coming out of hard or long work! 🙂

I have an assistant who does wonders. She is young, smart, careful, enthusiastic, and positive and I love working with her. She has been helping and facilitating many difficult tasks that I have been having a hard time to start with or focus on. Thanks to her, two of the difficult tasks are moving now. One was particularly bothering me but today together with her we had a breakthrough. Priceless…..

I am one lucky boss 🙂

 

 

stretching class tonite

So I went to participate in the yoga class this evening, which is in effect a stretching class. I was over-protective of my back but to my surprise, my back felt and did just perfect.

Almost each of the classes, I come to realize something, come up with a great idea, or just find myself smile.

Rarely, tears go down and tonite was one of these sessions.

I was not upset, sad, or depressed. In contrast, the reason tears came down was this genuine appreciation of connecting with my body.

See, these classes make me think about my body, like my back, shoulders, legs, hips, face, hands, or wherever we are trying to stretch. The instructor also guides us and mentions about our internal organs (how they are massaged by some of the stretches or poses), which made me think and feel the most precious love for my heart and lungs tonite.

I also have the chance to see my feet in these classes (always wearing socks except in these classes) and I happen to have that precious, genuine, and sincere love for them, too; their shape… the fingers…the toes… the nails… the skin… the way they are designed… the way they move…the way they differ from each other… I just love seeing them and feeling this love.

Realizing,.. no, remembering the existence of my body, seeing and feeling it, and connecting with it were what create these overwhelming feelings and the reason of my tears of joy tonite.

When did I get so unconnected to my own body, which has been working so well all these years, defining me in so many different ways, and making me an alive and well functioning organism?

If you could find a chance today or tomorrow or the days after tomorrow, take a minute to connect to your body and your organs; listen it, feel it, watch it, admire it, love it.

🙂

 

joy journal, Jan 18, 2016

1. I am grateful for sleeping well and getting up refreshed and ready to take the day.

2. I am grateful for my coffee in the morning and at noon. It is delicious and is giving me the kick that I sometimes need to keep focus on work. I am also glad that I brew my own coffee at the office, as I please, as much as I like.

3.  I am grateful for the cheese snacks I have had at noon – better than no lunch.

4. I am grateful for taking my time in the morning to be happy about taking the bus this morning. yes, there was a lot of snow on the ground but I decided to take the bus. It was delayed 15 min this morning, but thankfully there was another lady who was waiting for it and we lightly chatted till it arrived.

5. I am grateful for liking to take the bus this morning – this feeling is important for me to keep taking the bus rather than the more expensive cab.

6. I am grateful for working on two important documents today, which are to my surprise progressing real fast. that is quite satisfactory and exciting as one of the documents I can submit this week and the other one was one of those delayed documents that I could not find energy to work on during fall. Good to see that this task now will be lifted off my shoulder 🙂

7. I am grateful for walking back to home from work, even though there was a heavy snow falling.

8. I am grateful for my back feeling better today, though walking in the afternoon made it ache more than usual. I have stretched my muscles a little bit upon coming to home and that felt really good.

9. I am grateful for having the entire evening to myself and enjoying it.

10. I am grateful for the possibility of a snow day tomorrow; they expect a heavy snow dumped tonite. So tomorrow morning I will check my emails first to see whether my work place is closed. if so, I will go to my favorite cafe and work there until I get bored of being there.

11. I am grateful for the nutritious soup and the almond milk I have had this evening.

12. I am grateful for my internet connection and computer that allows me to browse the internet and learn many interesting stuff. Just this evening, I learnt about the “grey scale” disease that GRRM created for the A Song of Ice and Fire series of books.

13. I am grateful for feeling alright, well, and relax today.

14. I am grateful for my black jacket that I love so much and which I have worn today. the color suits me well and I would like to get one or two black jackets after March when my shopping freeze for clothes ends.

15. I am grateful for communicating with an old friend of mine. She just had a baby girl and seeing the pictures made me happy 🙂

16. I am grateful for the peaceful atmosphere of my home and the night.

17. I am grateful for being frugal today and generally speaking doing really well with my frugal life and budget.

18. I am grateful for the light shoveling I have done in the afternoon – it is a good exercise though I should be careful and not hurt my back again.

19. I am grateful for my family and good friends, for their wellbeing, health, safety, and joy in life.

20. I am grateful for life, for having everything at my home working well for me, for my home being strong, resilient, safe, and warm.

21. I am grateful for being grateful and taking my time to remember these beautiful things/thoughts I have experienced today.

2015 wrap up

This year has been great in so many different ways: I am grateful for many positive and lovely experiences this year marked in my life. I always find it useful to reflect at the end of each year, assess and remember what has happened or how I have done, and then plan and have hope for the new year. That is what exactly I have started doing today.

My list of 2015 highlights is not finalized yet; but here is a general list that I may expand later:

1. Family and health: My family’s and my health has been alright; I am very grateful for this. I also found a chance to visit my family last summer, for which I could not be thankful enough. Our close relationship and support for each other continues no matter how far I am.

2. Finances: After a bout of financial worries and unexpected expenses (mostly home repairs), I had finally realized I had to change things. I started with a budget in June 2015, which turned out to be a great help.

a) According to my calculations, I have saved around 20% of my gross income (not including my home equity and company pension plan); seeing this the other day was a pure joy and happiness.

b) My total savings from would be-expenses (expenses I was tempted to do, but did not) for the last 6 months is ~$3,000…. This is an incredible achievement… I am proud of myself.

c) The shopping freeze was a great idea – I am not sure who came up with this idea first, but I am wholeheartedly thanking this individual(s) for bringing it to my attention. An absolutely working and wonderful idea.

d) While I needed to borrow from my personal line of credit, I kept continuing buying mutual funds during the last year. Having “debt” pushed me to save more and was the initial motivation after the budget saga: while I have had hardship, I gained because of it. For this, I also thank myself for not giving up and turning things around.

e) I did not have any major repair expenses related to my home this year. My lovely house is strong and sound and I do hope that for many years to come, it will continue to stay strong.

3. Food management: My food waste is minimized 🙂 That is something I truly am proud of. I never intended to waste food, but now I am way better than before: I learnt to do the grocery shopping as required (not once a week) and I learnt to freeze food for later consumption. I even learnt and applied blanching to preserve veggies, such as carrots and zucchini. The pleasure these activities have given me is incredible.

4. Decluttering: This was another thing that positively affected my life. I not only removed many unuseful, unwanted, or crappy things from my house, but also donated many stuff to charity, realized how abundant I was and I did not need to buy many stuff for a while, and psychologically felt the lift of some weight off my shoulder. I am looking forward to the next decluttering activity 🙂

5. Work: Work has gone crazy this year, mostly because I worked with minimal performance. I am not sure why that happened, but one thing is that I have been working so hard for so many years that now I want to take my time for other activities, such as blogging and literature. Life is good, work can be stressful time to time, but I will handle all to my best.

6. New stuff around the house: I loved the art-work I have purchased a few months back that gave a new look and character to my house. I also loved the plants I have got, which are absolutely adorable. The couch cover I have got lately is an absolute beauty. I am not materialistic yet the feelings these and others around my house give me should be acknowledged and cherished.

7. Life-style changes: Well, not as good as I would like to, but I have made some positive changes in my life; walking to the office in the morning (when the weather is permissive) is one of these activities. I have eaten generally better, although I could not lose the weight I wanted to; this is the second. Better days will come 🙂

And so on… Many things to be grateful for 🙂

Once I finish this list, I will have a closure and appreciation. After that, I know I will start working on the new year’s hopes and plans. I hope you will have great ones, too 🙂

 

 

 

 

random thoughts

What a beautiful day; crispy but sunny 🙂

I have a good mood mostly because I have had a great work day today; I have had 5 different meetings but all went very well. Also after I came home from the office, I took care of a document which was lagging at my hands. I always feel awesome after my procrastination ends 🙂 During the day, I also started to take care of another big work related issue; once I started and if I do not lose my speed, I know I will progress this one, too.

Considering how much I have been beating up myself for not working efficiently lately, this improvement in my performance is an exciting one. I am not sure what contributes to this, but I am glad it is happening.

I must tell you one thing: changing the furniture around my home last weekend has had a positive change in my mood. I keep telling myself how great and peaceful the new couch/seating area feels. I have been contemplating about it yesterday night and I am kind of thinking this set the positive mood for today. Could not be more appreciative 🙂

have a great night everyone! 🙂

forgetting the positive things

I have ranted quite a bit lately about my performance and daily struggles (for example here and here).

As someone who is quite critical of herself, I sure know better than this about myself. I know for example, while I was feeling overwhelmed lately, I kept doing things, especially at work. They may not be the fastest I have ever worked on, but I have nevertheless done several great things.

I have for example completed and submitted an important document by one of my team members for review – this task has been on my to-do-list for almost a year (that explains why I was feeling inefficient with it). While I took the entire responsibility, I forgot that I only have driven it ahead during the last one year. I diligently worked on it, gave my feedback, straightened up, revised and revised… Without my efforts, it could not have been done. So, why not to realize this and celebrate my efforts instead?

Similarly, I have had another document at my hand for sometime now; it has been on my to-do-list for again almost a year. I moved quite a bit and then stopped due to trips and other technical reasons. I just clarified an important point this Monday and from now on there is nothing that keeps me from completing it. So, let me celebrate the removal of these hurdles, all by my own efforts.

There are so many others like this; some of these remained undone so far partly because of me but mostly because of dependence on others. I can only beat myself up for the delays on my side, but not for the delays due to other people…. I am guilty of not taking care of stuff on a timely manner, but I am not guilty of checking things with others (which caused the majority of the delays) – I tried to get to the bottom of everything and do the right thing before some gray areas present themselves as problems in the future. This, now I realize, requires celebration, not beating up myself…

Interestingly, an issue I resolved this Monday also helped with another task delayed mostly because of me (I have no good excuse for delaying this task…). Perhaps, that delay was then helpful, not detrimental.. Another thing to be grateful about….

In the last 3 months, I have done so much – I thought about them today and I liked what I have seen. For example, I have delivered several speeches to colleagues, one particularly got many positive feedback. That I should particularly congratulate myself for..

Yes, there have been delays. Yes, I have not moved things forward as fast as I would like to. But I have done something, some great things in between.

I am getting a more clear picture of things today (at least for my job-related feelings), which is very helpful. I just needed to stop and look back and evaluate things… Taking the afternoon off just for this purpose seems to have just helped this progress in my thinking…

This is the highlight for today 🙂

friendship

I just read somewhere about cherishing our friends; it said when they are loyal, they are priceless. Or something like that. There was also a picture of two young women hugging each other with large smiles on their faces 🙂

I have had such friends and I am very lucky to have them.

When I started thinking about my friends, I could not remember what made them being in my live for so long, with so many memories. Was it their kindness? Loveliness? Respect? Sincerity? Support in bad times? Being happy for me when great things happened? Being excited for me, with me? Spending time with our families? The care we show each other? The extra steps we have taken for each other?

What drives these behaviour? Why some people care about us and become great friends and then many others cannot?

See, I cannot put my finger on what makes friends friends. What distinguish them from thousands of other people I have met in my life….

I made the majority of my friends before the age of 30. We studied together, we laughed and cried together. We trust each other. We love each other. I would not change them to the world. The only good friend I have made after the age of 30 is a great person, a colleague of mine who is smart, humane, kind, funny, and dependable. I wonder whether I will make another one in my future – possibly not.

I love my friends. Perhaps I will never know the reasons that led them and me keep being friends, love and care about each other for so many years, but I know that I am grateful for them for ever.

Next time I see them, I will give them an extra hug.

appreciation to fellow bloggers :)

I would like to thank all the fellow bloggers who are following me; it is currently more than 450 🙂 I never thought I would get that many people who would be interested in hearing what I have to say. From the bottom of my heart, thanks for being interested in my blog!

The same for those who take time to comment on my posts and reply to my comments. Each one of you have somehow enriched my thoughts with your support and kind and encouraging words that also hinted your wonderful characters – thanks a lot 🙂

A final word to those blogs that I follow: I want you to know I read your posts as my time permits and I always like a post only after I read it. I am constantly learning and expanding my vision, thanks to your experiences and writing. Thank you for being here and sharing your world.

cheers everyone 🙂

May your lives be full of beauty, hope, support, and love, however bumpy and dry it may look 🙂 *I like this picture as the little boat looks so off, so away from where it is supposed to be, yet is so full of life…. 🙂

red

red; I will miss you

your colour, even the pain you have given me

your presence said so much, so silent

for so long, so with me

I had not realized

we in fact were separate

they say you gotta go

and that is what I must accept

you were me

with me

for all these times

I know I have nothing to do to reverse this

I am glad I have lived enough to see you leave me

leave me as you please

you served me well

I will cherish your memory

I am now pink

still pulsating, still living

only without you

——————————————–

All rights reserved.  © https://lifeasiinterpret.wordpress.com/

random thoughts

It is Friday!! 🙂

Oh, yes. And it feels good 🙂

I am so grateful for my job, which has flexibility when comes to working hours or being at home or in office.

Yesterday, I worked from home to finish some work and some errands in the afternoon. Today, I spend only around 3 hours at the office and then walked back home. My cold, sneezing and runny nose continue; but today I also started to have headaches. In addition, walking or sitting for long hours is not helping the muscle I pulled at my back. But more that that there was a 2-hour meeting in the afternoon I kind of dreaded. So I sent my comments and suggestions by email for the meeting, came home nice and easy, went to the cafe to work a little bit and got some ideas while walking back, worked on a critical document and finished it (yay!), sent some slides to some people, and finalized another set of slides for a presentation next week.

yes, I have done well today 🙂

I do not know how it looks to someone from outside if they see me not being in my office. Do I look like taking advantage of my work? Not working? Enjoying my time with other lovely and leisure activities?

I think to some this is what it would look like.

To me, working home is a great alternative; less distraction, more comfort. You have seen the amount of work I have done in 6 hours above. I am very pleased with all going so well, despite the frequent sneezing and the runny nose. The headache and the pain at my back are manageable for now, if not I have medication to help ease them. So all is well on my side 🙂

I am so happy that today is Friday and tomorrow is the weekend. I plan to take it easy this weekend, but will work on another document that I have not finished in the last few months. It is time that I complete it and submit. I will clean my home and do the laundry tomorrow, but I am not worried about them too much. Then, I will get prepared for my trip next week.

Life is good 🙂

have a great Friday night everyone!

joy journal – Sept 20, 2015

joy…happiness… peace… joy…

I have no entry in this journal in the last few weeks – time to spill all the joy 🙂

1. I am grateful for getting up on time this morning – I was tired from yesterday but I did not sleep late. Good job 🙂

2. I am grateful for walking at the Terry Fox Run with my colleagues; we not only raised funds to help cancer research but also socialized and burned energy :).

3. I am grateful that I found a chance to extra walk today; the Terry Fox Run venue was 25 min away from my home, which I walked to and from. I am glad the weather was permissive (e.g. not raining) and I was not lazy or tired; so I could do all the walking 🙂

4. I am grateful that I saw myself walking at a pace that I used to 5-10 years ago; would that mean I am not that old after all! 🙂 I loved that feeling; walking, sweating, but not panting or running out of breath. Just like the old times! My body does an amazing job 🙂

5. I am grateful for checking a grocery store on the way back. It is one of the big stores. I used to shop there and then winter hit and I forgot to visit it. I made a mental note that it is a great store that I should check time to time. Walking to and from will be extra exercise, too 🙂

6. I am grateful for finding red cabbage in the store. Yuppi!!!… I have been craving for it for weeks now. I love red cabbage as a salad material! I bought 2 small ones (I must go back to that store time to time!)

7. I am grateful for talking to my family today – what would I do without them?

8. I am grateful for working on my computer and moving up with an important document. I still need to work on it, but tomorrow before noon I will have time to do so. Then I can submit it for review.

9. I am grateful that instead of working whole afternoon and night, I decided to take a break. the last few days I just has been running from one task to other. Stress is negatively affecting me. It is better that I take time for myself to recharge.

10. I am grateful for liking my work I did yesterday with the deck. Yep, the new stain is much lighter in color and the entire deck looks patchy; but hey I hopefully will finish it next week (right before the rain/winter) 🙂

11. I am grateful for, on the average, eating better. I think it has been 2-3 weeks now I did not eat bagels at my regular weekend breakfasts… what a change… I never thought I could do this, but looks like when the right time comes, it does happen.. Wishing this will extend to my other not-so-good habits soon 🙂

12. I am grateful for my home, power, TV, cable connection, computer, phone, and all the furniture, food, and items in it that make my life safe, comfortable, and delightful.

13. I am grateful for the soup I made this afternoon – warm and nourishing.

14. I am grateful for my plans for the next weekend! Yep; the week will be too rush-rush (too many stuff to take care), but the weekend I sure will take time to relax. I first will go get some more stain to finish the deck, will do shopping at a nearby more affordable store, visit two thrifty stores for anything interesting (not that I am planning to buy stuff unless they are great; but I so enjoy going thru stuff at those stores. Not sure why I do not have the same pleasure from going around other, regular stores. Could it be because I know that I can afford many of the nice stuff at the thrifty stores? Or is it because these stores have many interesting items from many different trends/seasons, but not necessarily only from the latest trends like other stores?)

15. I am grateful for being grateful 🙂

candid thoughts

There are times that very heavily I remember the “loves of my life”.

I was lucky enough to love two wonderful men. I do not know what prompts me to remember and wonder how they are.  Are they well? Healthy? Happy? Do they remember me? Ever. How do they feel if they do?

I am lucky that both of them are still alive – to my knowledge. Cannot take the pain of thinking they are being dead. I am so lucky that I have not experienced this yet.

Love is an interesting thing; you do not know where you will find it, and when and how you will lose. Or how it will affect you. It does affect, right? To me both cases were detrimental, with years of trying to forget, trying to get over. They, however, never leave my mind (or my heart for that matter) for good. A part of me is theirs.

I am okay with this. Not that I am interested in the pain of longing or mourning for all the lost possibilities that could be experienced with them. No. It is just that I am glad they were in my life. And I got the chance to love them deeply.

One of the bloggers said in a post last week that he rather prefers to be loved deeply than widely. It struck me hard, as that reminded me many things (I had slightly touched this topic earlier in a post of mine). The reason I had written about it then was a book; The faults in our stars”, a novel by John Green where the author makes a case for being loved widely versus being loved deeply. A friend of mine had mentioned to me this last year, after which I had bought and read the book. I had found it interesting (amazing that a book can make such a shift in my understanding of things). When you think about it, do you not find it interesting? Which one would you like?

Being loved deeply must be a beautiful thing. Loving deeply certainly is.

I am not sorry that I loved that much. At the end of the day (or till the end of my life), I will be grateful for these two men for being so lovable and so amazing.

That is one of the few candid posts I have written where I split opened my heart. Anyways, I think it is okay, as I can not be the only one who loved and then lost.

Live, laugh, and love.

gratefulness

I have been pretty occupied with my budget and weight-loss journeys lately. They both aim to benefit me and require daily effort and recording/assessing of progress.

Along the way, I forgot to be grateful for life, to notice little thing that make me happy, to note the people, things, and events that gave me joy.. It does feel superficial and empty without being grateful, joyful, and happy; there are so many things out there more important and more valuable than these two plans…. I am happy to note this today.

Do not get me wrong; I am also grateful for coming up with these plans – I needed both. My finances would be much worse, very constraining, and depressing in future (now that I own an old house); and my weight is only going up and this is scaring me.

Those who are familiar with my posts will know what a struggle it is to implement and make these plans more or less established changes in my daily life. I rant, I get excited, I complain…I get excited again 🙂

It is draining sometimes – going through this phase. Especially at the beginning. Later things become alright one way or the other (either done, replaced, or modified to suit the reality).

Today I am not going to rant; I will rather give my thanks for the reasons that made me need these changes; the budgeting plan particularly.

I am grateful for the house I own; it is old, but newly renovated. I love being in this house and in the little yard it has – with all the trees and flowers that bloom in the spring. It is on a great location, helping me continue with my life and work with no problem (e.g. my work place is in walking distance, the bus stop is close, there are restaurants, a big grocery store, and multiple convenience stores in my neighborhood etc.). Last year I had a major roof problem, which took me 9 months to get someone to fix – it was a nerve-breaking experience. And it was expensive – after paying it my chequing account drop to $0. It has been an ongoing battle to have a positive balance since then.

And since last March, I got crazy over a crack on one of my interior walls, which I was told is possibly a foundation problem. I am still waiting for it to get visibly worse (if it gets…) so that we can start repairing it. The quotes given to me are not for the fainted heart.. And I know that there may be other unexpected repairs or expenses associated with the home-ownership (for one example, my property tax just got increased, argh..). That is why I came up with my budget 3 months ago: All the expenses incurred for my house and those that are possible in the future.. I could not see any other way out of this psychological drama.

Yes, it was a struggle, I was not consistent in the beginning at all, but now I am very much comfortable with my budgeted life. I cannot talk for sure about the future, but I am sincerely hoping I will continue like this.

You may ask “why is she grateful?”.

I am grateful because I do see this budgeted life as a continuous life-style that saves me around $10K/year. That is a huge amount of money that sure will help cover the expenses related to house repairs and maintenance over many years. And more importantly, I started not too late so that I can see the savings (however little they may be) accumulating before I face serious repairs. This way, I bought time and am feeling at more ease (this saved funds may not be enough for the repairs, but still are they not better than not having any savings? I could as well just continue like before and throw them away with my spending ..)

While I cannot say I am totally at ease with the possibly huge expenses associated with home-ownership, I can say that budgeting allows me to take the home ownership a little bit easier.

I just needed to reminded this to myself today.

Thanks for listening.

further on chicken meals

if there is something that will shot down my appetite, it is chicken. Especially the roasted one.

I have bought a whole roasted chicken this afternoon – I can tell you I will force myself to eat it, but I could easily live without it.

I feel awkward saying that; there are so many people out there who are hungry, poor, and would love to have that chicken.

I shut my mouth now.

I will eat it and never complain about food again.

random thoughts

It was a beautiful September day today; crispy and shiny with a clear blue sky. What a delight 🙂

In addition to meeting with my friends and having lovely time, I also did some more work at the house. First I went thru the books I sorted out to get rid of. I had a feeling yesterday that maybe I overdid it and in fact there were many books that I could enjoy. So, I could not help it, went thru each of them, and decided to take back one book. Only one book! 🙂

See, I guess anyone who is parting with loved items would feel this way; did I make a mistake? should I keep them? How wise was my sorting and decluttering strategy? I am very happy to see that I did a good job with it; taking back only one book tells me that next time I can trust myself more and sort only once. Then, they will be ready to go. No looking back.

I must admit when I put the to-be-donated books away in a cabinet (till we bring them to the charity), my living room looked a lot better, more clear and organized. I could not help but move little furniture around, put a plant here and there, and vola I have a brand new living room. Is that not awesome? I think it is. Change in scenery is always good. And having the freedom to move stuff around (which you can only do if you have enough space free of clutter) is even more exciting.

I am not done with decluttering; in the last few weeks I have done great donating clothes. Now the books. The next items are the CDs and the VHS casettes that I have. I am very fond of the VHSs particularly. But I decided it was best we went different directions in life. I am not sure whether they can be donated anywhere; but it does not hurt to ask. As per the CDs, some of them I really like and would like to keep. But others need to go – there are CDs I have not listened in the last 5-10 years.

The final items to be sorted out will be my shoes… I am scared to look at the shoe boxes as I always find something that is beautiful…

There is something nice about getting rid of stuff. Today one of my friends came to choose among the books I am about to give away. She was surprised apparently and asked me “why are you giving them away?”. I said “so that I can get rid of the old and open space for new ones, new experiences, new interests. Plus, they (i.e. books) would love to have new readers that will appreciate them”.

My friend nodded in agreement.

Have a great long-weekend everyone 🙂

what did decluttering my books teach me?

As part of a few weeks’ decluttering effort, I finally sorted out my books and decided on which ones to keep with me.

I have always been a book lover and as much as I like to read them, I also love to buy books (sometimes even more so than reading them).

Buying books at the nearby second-hand bookstore was a regular weekend activity for me for around 6 years. As soon as I got my breakfast, I would run there, often times with my coffee, and forgot everything while browsing the books. It was a pleasurable and meditative activity, I got to discover awesome books and writers, and going back home with books I knew it would be exciting to read the books.

There were times though I could not find something to my likening; infrequently I left the bookstore without buying any book. But in the rest, I had to buy – I could not stand the thought of a weekend without exploring a book, and the relaxation, and excitement coming out of it.

I know that I have many books that I am assuming I bought to satisfy that impulse – they are not great, they are not exciting, and even sometime the topic does not interest me at all. I now dumped these books. Lessons learnt: I should not buy books if I am not sincerely interested in them; instead I should go check out the books I already have at home now- the ones that I decided to keep are all awesome, timeless books.

It is great that I wanted to declutter my house, that I went thru each of my books and now know them better, and that I have a shopping freeze for books till the holiday season. After seeing the amount of books I purchased and dumped today, I felt bad about piling them around my home and wasting money on them. Do net get me wrong; I think any book can be awesome for someone, somewhere, sometime; but the ones I sorted out were not meant for me.

Happy decluttering, happy appreciating what you have and enjoy, and happy saving money 🙂

That just sounds perfect to me.

random thoughts

The summer is slipping out of our hands; I have been wearing jackets in the last few days. I sure will miss the sunshine 🙂 Well…. till next time.

I left the office early but continued to work at home. Sometimes it is a lot efficient this way, though I feel bad about not being in the office.. Anyways, looks like my “take-it-easy” days are over and I really need to kick if I want to finish things in a timely manner. And I do. Working will thus continue throughout the weekend. Cannot complain 🙂

I did grocery shopping this afternoon, which really made me feel good. I like shopping :); I gotta tell you though buying less items and as required made a huge difference in my “waste” levels. I am glad that this is working for me.

Today was also the first day of my new financial week (i.e. feeling rich as I have a weekly allowance at my disposal)- I treated myself with a cup of take-out coffee in the morning, right before a 9am meeting; could not be happier 🙂 And I am really proud of myself that I now have no problem catching the bus or waiting for it should I get up a little bit earlier or late. When I remember the internal fights I have had for several months till the last couple of weeks, I am sincerely surprised. It tells me that change does not come easy but it comes eventually….

By this inspiration and by noting the fact that I was only gaining weight in the last few weeks by not cooking meals at home, I am now moving up with my next challenge in the list: eating healthy food and losing weight. Just like taking the bus rather than the cab, I expect this effort to be a little bit inconsistent at the beginning, but later becoming standard.

And did I mention I loved shopping? 🙂 Yes.. Yes, I have. I will treat myself to a thrifty store visit this weekend. Hey, I may as well bring the bags of clothes that I had sorted while decluttering my wardrobe a couple of weeks ago. I meant to check them again to make sure that I was not giving away anything that I could use, but the fact that I have not done this since then tells me that I already gave up on these items. Time to find a new home for them.

have a great friday evening/night everyone 🙂

post-vacation blues

Hello everyone,

Just came back from my vacation of 5 week. I had incredibly beautiful and at the same time an emotional time with my family and friends. It is always sad to leave the people I love most behind and come back to work and my life here… I suspect I will write many posts over the coming days about the feelings and realizations I have had while on vacation, and more importantly after I came back.

I love my family more than anything else. Each time I come back I think about leaving my job and life here to join them. It is a possibility yet the conditions are not perfectly fine (mostly financial). And that is why I keep doing this – living away from them and visiting them once or twice a year. Yet, I question a lot whether that is the best. Will I be able to see them again? Will I regret the times spent away from them? Is it worth having my daily life here while I emotionally dessert myself so much?

I cannot know.

On the positive side, my friend who house-sat while I was away is still at my home and keeping me company. I owe her a lot – she not only gave me a piece of mind but also distracts me from my post-vacation blues. She even prepared a nice welcome back dinner yesterday; is that not awesome?  🙂

It is great to have people around who care, love, cherish, and support. If you are one of those lucky people, please take a moment to appreciate them.  I sincerely hope you have many of them in your life 🙂

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

I am humbled once again.

Thank you Deb for nominating me for the “Very Inspiring Blogger” Award.

Deb has a candid and humorous blog, which also includes “our daily gratefulness post” section; those who follow me know how much I love this kind of posts 🙂

You may as well check Deb’s blog and see what she has to offer for you. Deb, thanks again for this opportunity to recognize the bloggers that I find inspiring and valuable (though the list is incomplete..).

According to Deb, the rules for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award are:

•  Thank the person who nominated you for the award.
•  Add the logo to your post.
•  Nominate ten (10) bloggers you admire and inform them of the nomination

I have had a tough time selecting 10 inspiring bloggers; as far as I am concerned, I would like to nominate all of you, whom I often interact with or learn something from. Those who I miss I hope will do the favor to forgive me.

here are my nominees:

1. http://thesmallc.com/ (I love her posts and opinions on her cancer journey and life; admiring most her candid, genuine, positive, and powerful writing and interactions with others, including me)

2. http://howtostuffyourpig.com/ (watch this lady for excellent and very practical budgeting and saving strategies 🙂 she made a difference in me)

3. https://frombusttoboom.wordpress.com/ (similarly, an excellent blog for budgeting and saving strategies 🙂 )

4. http://ninasusan.com/ (very tough lady 🙂 but also very funny and wise; wishing her a fast recovery from a recent surgery)

5. https://theonlysup.wordpress.com/ (inspiring posts on anything from financial planning to soft-skills to poems..)

6. http://alienblob.com/ (grieving due to a significant loss; dealing with not only this loss but also cancer and life; I admire her strength and wishes her the best)

7. https://anunscheduledjourney.wordpress.com/ (breast cancer veteran – I hope she does not mind the term veteran – has a deep insight about life and healing – I’ve learnt a lot)

8. http://mychordomajourney.com/ (thanks to him I learnt about chordoma, a rare type of bone cancer. He is doing an excellent job about raising awareness on this disease)

9. https://tamtam01blog.wordpress.com/ (from budgeting to photography to genuine posts about anything in life; this blog has a lot to offer)

10. https://potterwillam3.wordpress.com/ (if you are looking for a blog that posts on a variety of topics, including lymphoma, by a kind and wise person, you gotta check his blog)

Cheers everyone – keep up the wonderful work of informing, teaching, and supporting us through your posts!

late-night random thoughts

First of all, late nights are awesome! They are silent, peaceful, and I feel like I have the entire world to myself.

Nowadays I have been going to the bed late. Tonite is one of them. I am not worried about not getting up on time. I am not sure whether it is true that as we age, we need less sleep? I always thought it was because of reduced amount of exercise maybe? Considering my almost the same level of exercise over the days or months, i do not think lack of exercise has anything to do with my reduced need of sleep. There must be another reason.

This morning, I woke up right on time to catch the bus, but rather took the cab. Why?

I do not have good mood in the mornings. This morning I woke up particularly pissed. I remembered (and why did I do that?) that one of my “good” friends had joked and almost insulted me about a treat basket I sent her all they way from Canada to USA when she got married. That was maybe 8 years ago. That is what she said about the chocolate in the basket;  “You know how much I love chocolate; I even ate that chocolate”.

Well, I  am not sorry that I did not send you the finest chocolate ever. I was almost penniless at that time and it cost me more than 2 weeks of allowance. 2 weeks.. yet, I sent it to you to celebrate your beautiful day.

No more gifts for you my friend – until you start appreciating people’s efforts and good wishes for you. Or at least until you zip it.

And this thought does not make me feel good, either; I prefer to have good wishes, good thoughts, gratefulness….

I am pissed at my friend once more.

I am surprised how mean and inconsiderate people can be and how we can keep them in our lives. In my case, my friend turned out to be a solid one, but she certainly is not shy to insult me as she pleases.

Again, I am pissed..

Deep breath.. All is well.. Right now I have everything and everyone I need and want. Right now I am at peace….

When I get up in the morning, I will be grateful for being alive, for welcoming another beautiful day full of life-experiences and opportunities, and hopefully will do or think something to make myself feel good.

Goodnight everyone 🙂

a list of resources for cancer caregivers

I must admit writing and thinking about cancer bring some heaviness to my heart. This post will be the last one about it hopefully for at least a couple of days.

I know a wonderful caregiver, who despite her senior age silently and all alone cried, suffered, and endured, and with almost no support from the rest of the family relentlessly cared for her daughter and helped her recover from cancer.

This caregiver will always have a special place in my heart and I will always have an incredible respect for her resilience, strength, and determination.

Caregivers are wonderful. I personally take this moment to recognize and appreciate their efforts, to thank them, and to let them know what an important role they have had in patients’ lives.

Caregivers’ emotional, physical, financial, and other needs I find are somehow neglected or not acknowledged. Yet, they may need support, understanding, and care, too.

I have collected some links below, which I hope may be useful. I am sure there are many out there, please feel free to explore.

cheers

———————————————————————————————————-

National Cancer Institute’s (USA) “Caring for Caregivers” booklet http://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/caring-for-the-caregiver.pdf

American Cancer Society (USA) “What it takes to be a caregiver” booklet:http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/cid/documents/webcontent/003199-pdf.pdf

“Coping checklist for caregivers” link

“Distress checklist for caregivers” link

Canadian Cancer Society (Canada) “If you are a caregiver” link

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO; USA) “Caregiver support” link at Cancer.Net

UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center’s (USA) “25 tips for caregivers” link

Helpforcancercaregivers.org 

issues, resilience, and strength

I kept mentioning house and work related issues I have.

these are actually potentially serious issues, but I am at “watch and see how they will develop as long as you do not run away from them and get opinions from others”. For some of the issues, waiting mean to see whether the issue will get worse, which will require action (such as a significant repair at home). I have been doing that; I am keeping an eye on the crack on one of my walls – whether it is a foundational issue or a regular “expansion” thing that happens when the weather gets warmer is not known. Wishful watching is the current recommendation, which I am doing everyday. If I detect that the crack is getting worse, I know who to call to get the repairs started.

Some work-related issues need the involvement and expert opinion of others, which I have sought already. Some of these issues are because of me not knowing every single detail, which now can impact the projects. I am not blaming myself for not knowing these; I did my best when I started the projects. I am a meticulous person and would not miss not even one possibility of risk. Sometimes I just do because I am not aware of them. That is an example of such a situation. There may be consequences to me, my work, and other people working with me and I will take the responsibility, but I am hoping it will not go in there and we will be able to resolve and fix the issues.

I kind of am amazed by myself that in the midst of all these issues, I keep calm. I am not sure what causes this unexpected but welcome mental calmness. Under different situations, I would think I would feel crashed. I am grateful that I am not feeling this way. Certainly something to be very happy and appreciative of.

I only today thought that these issues and how I reacted to them are actually great preparations for my future issues and projects. This gives me confidence. I am working on a big project that will be a huge responsibility more than any other undertakings of mine and I was thinking “how am I going to deal with this responsibility, knowing how antsy and meticulous I am (being meticulous means I consider many different details at a level that maybe majority of my colleagues would not, and consider all the risks and gaps, which naturally cause anxiety and mood swings)”.

Now I feel like I can handle things; if I can handle my current issues then I can handle the future ones. Keeping finger crossed. Keeping positive.

random thoughts

1. Writing is therapeutic; I had said that a couple of times before. I am not particularly feeling positive today, thus I am constantly looking for ways to feel better. Moving to couch from the recliner; eating a healthy meal (very good for me); trying to watch TV to focus my mind on things other than my feelings, and seriously considering eating sweets..

2. I thanked myself for the first time in a long while…. I thanked myself for despite everything, the heavy work schedule and responsibilities, for taking care of stuff all by myself. I should do that more often..

3. Why do the washing machines sometime shake violently and scare us? The first load was problematic, which made me thought “how am I going to balance this huge machine now?”. I continued anyhow and the second and the third loads run with no problem. I remembered later; that must be the load – I should have stopped the machine and redistribute the clothes to help machine find balance. Lesson learnt! 🙂

4. I am looking for good news here and there; why are they so hard to find? Or are they there but I cannot see/find them?

5. let me create my good news then; I already have progressed quite a bit towards becoming a “Pollyanna” with my “joy journal” series….. All right; here is the good news for today; I have every single thing at my life to enjoy my life. A moment of realization and appreciation.

joy journal – March 8, 2015

I cannot think about a better way to continue feeling better than writing the things I have been grateful for lately. I do not know what I will write right now, but I know that once I intend to write them, I will find them, I will remember them. That is in the simplistic term an effective therapy for me. Here I start;

1. I am grateful for my family and friends; for their love and support, their well being and health. I love them dearly.

2. I am grateful for today being a sunday. I have maybe another two hours before I go to bed and I can enjoy every minute. This being said, I can enjoy any minute any time; it is my choice and my right.

3. I am grateful tomorrow is a work day – one more day at home would get boring for me. I have the choice of taking a day off if I feel like I may need time for myself, or do not want to be in the office. That freedom feels good.

4. I am grateful for gathering myself up after the depressive day yesterday. I am not sure what happened or how I managed it. It did not happen because I tried something, some way, some strategy (such as meditation, talking to friends, or so); it just happened. I feel like my mind helped itself. It feels good.

5. Despite all issues, worries, or negative things going on in my life, I am aware that I am not the only one, so I feel some kind of relief. Many people have even more dare issues to deal with; sickness, grief, financial troubles, etc. I know I am not immune to life’s challenges. I know that I will go through them like anyone else.

6. I am grateful that I have food, clothes, furniture and a house to live in.  I am thankful that I can afford all of these.

7. I am grateful that this morning at my favourite cafe, instead of working i read a magazine. What a nice change! And change I like. Routine gets boring after a while; seriously does. I need change; different places to see, different colours to wear, different opinions to hear.

8. I am grateful for my blog, computer, and the internet connection that makes this writing possible.

9. I am grateful that I realized I need a break. yes, I do. how wonderful it would be if I could afford a mini vacation, a week maybe away from this cold winter and every day routine.

10. I am grateful that I support myself fully and I am capable of facing things, however scary or annoying they may be. I am thankful that I appreciate myself and thank myself.

11. I am grateful that there are some nice voices, smiling faces, supportive and compassionate souls here and there. it is nice to hear someone offering that they can listen to me if I want to talk it happened here yesterday; many thanks you 🙂 ). I am grateful that the waitress at my favourite cafe yesterday get my coffee ready before I asked. I learnt her name and I have thanked her. That was a high-energy experience. It re-charged me, gave me hope, and energy. Thank you Jessica. I hope when you need it, you will find many people around you to support you and make you smile, like you have done yesterday for me.

12. I am grateful for not being agitated right now; a little bit maybe but not too much. there is quite a relief in accepting things as they are and letting wishes, plans, and any other thing that do not work and bothers me go. That is a great feeling. Some may say it is a failure, I say I am liberated. Point of view.

13. I am grateful for the daylight saving time being started (or ended; I do not know which one) today. I have not enjoyed losing one hour today, but you know what; this one extra hour-long daylight in the evening gave me hope. this one extra hour of light made me feel like, even though it does not show its face yet, spring is about to come. a couple of more months and then things will be brighter. It feels good.

14. I am grateful that while I was depressed yesterday, I did not whine to anyone and reduce their energy by it. All needs their energy to go through their lives. I am happy that I have not negatively affected any one.

15. I am grateful that I realize I take too much to do and along the way get overwhelmed and inefficient (as I have been lately). It is time for me to say no to certain things. It is time for me to stop during the day and do something different. As a matter of fact, that is a great idea! why do I not have a “Change of the day” section here and write down things that I did differently!! That will be awesome! Great idea! even a small thing can make a difference in my life. I am grateful that I have come up with this idea right now. Another great thing about writing my joy journal! :))))

16. I am excited for the “Change of the day” idea and I am grateful for that. Excitement is a great thing.

17. I am grateful for making a list of things that I have done as a change lately: here is my short list:

a) starting a blog ( a few months ago)

b) writing poems and short stories (I hardly did before I opened this blog)

c) buying less groceries

d) eating more carrots

e) drinking tea at home, even for time to time

f) starting yoga and then taking a break from it before it became a routine activity

g) planning to start yoga again

h) starting to work at my favourite cafe

i) not visiting my favourite book store – now I actually wished I had; it is such an exciting thing to go through the books, buying them and bringing home, and then exploring them. Due to winter I could not walk there, but you know I will start sometime soon. So it is great.

j) changing my tooth paste

k) changing my laundry detergent; it smells so good I am very happy about it.

l) not shopping large – I enjoy shopping, buying things that I will need, especially if they are on sale. On top of the things that I need, I also purchase things that will feel like a present to me; a pack of pens, some other little stationary items, something colourful. I have not done that since the holidays because I have everything now. This probably saves me money, but at the same time I should mention I missed that feeling of shopping!

crush of the day

While I do not understand or believe in meditation, I found the messages in this video re: dear body, quiet realistic appreciations. Let’s remember our body, how miraculously it works for us, how we can stop taking it granted, and help it to do its best for us.

cheers

joy journal – January 29, 2015

It has been a while that I have not noted the things, events, or people I have been grateful for. I have many things to share; here are the latest ones I remember:

1. I am grateful for walking from office to home – I have been consistently doing that even though it is winter. I am grateful that I have a good pair of boots, gloves, scarf and coat that allow me to do the walking. I also thank myself for enjoying it, no matter what. It is so relaxing and I am happy to do it considering its health benefits to my mind and body. Well done.

2. I am grateful for eating different foods. I usually consume the same veggies/fruits, but lately I have been purchasing different types. For example, grapes: I like them only occasionally (oranges and apples are my favourite winter fruits),or zucchini: again I eat it only occasionally. I believe the variety in food I consume is really a great, healthy choice.

3. I am grateful for not having any problem at my home. Last winter I had roof problems in winter, which was very annoying. I am glad I got the roof fixed right before the winter. There is quite a peace of mind coming with this.

4. I am grateful I started a yoga/stretching class last week. I have been thinking about it for some time, but finally something prompted me to start it last week – in a couple of hours I made my mind and then attended my first class. Now I go there five times a week. The sessions consist of un-forceful but long stretches of back and hips, which I really benefit from. The lights are dimmed, temperature is warm, and the background music is relaxing. It is my evening routine now to attend these sessions. The place is only 100 meters away from my house (that is great really; I have no excuse to not go), there are sessions as late as 7 pm (which is awesome; this way I am not rushing back from the office), and there are sessions at the weekend as well. While the fee is a little bit too much for me right now, joining this club was the best decision I have made in the last few years. I am grateful for this. A lot.

5. I am grateful for my green jacket – I really love it; its colour is peaceful and it keeps me warm no matter what. I really love this jacket – I hope it will last for a couple of more years.

6. I am grateful for getting a new project funded. It really excited me and I am really happy to have got it. Now I have some funds to use in the next few years to do an exciting project. That is so great for my job as well as my career. I should also mention it is great for my confidence – I was feeling quite low due to lack of enough funds to do our projects, but now I have some funds and I can get more in future. Confidence and pride – I love this project 🙂

7. I am grateful for quitting negative stories and for being determined to focus on positive ones. When I think about this decision (which came out of nowhere), I find myself smiling and looking at future with optimism. We may not know what life will bring to us, yet we may as well enjoy this moment when everything is in place and as they are supposed to be. I am very grateful for this feeling.

8. I am grateful for my good friends; they make a huge difference. I am also grateful for my family – without them I would not be here or be what/who I am.

9. I am grateful for my life – today at the stretching class, there were many peaceful moments – I felt like I should credit my life for bringing me to these moments… No matter how hard it has been, there are so many nice, peaceful, happy, excited, or just fine moments in life, it is only fair to notice and acknowledge them. When we can take time to focus on them, when we can empty/relax the mind, they are easier to identify. I am wishing everyone a similar experience.

10. I am grateful for closing the doors for problematic relationships and refreshing my emotional world. Always a delight. Some relationships are not supposed to be in our lives, they are not supposed to take our energy away with their problematic, effortful natures. Yet, we keep them with us for some reasons. When it is time to let them go, we know it deep down, and letting go becomes a natural act. I am happy with my current peaceful and refreshed inner world.

joy journal – January 18, 2015

There is something missable about being grateful and writing to my joy journal. So here is my today’s joy journal entries:

1. I am grateful that I miss writing my joy journal – being thankful to life, what happens or I notice is a great feeling. I genuinely feel its excitement!

2. I am grateful for being safe, sound, and healthy. I would like to have a better, healthier life style. This has been bugging me for sometime… It is time to focus on myself and make the changes I need to make. Walk more, exercise more, eat better… However difficult these could be in winter, nevertheless there are options to implement. Let me figure them out.

3. I am grateful for talking on the phone with people I love today; always a great feeling.

4. I am grateful for changing my daily routine and trying new things in a new sequence; new cafe, new type of breakfast, new time/day to do the grocery shopping.

5. I am grateful for having healthier food today; soup at noon and salad after that felt both tasty and healthy – good job.

6. I am grateful for the weather – it is not too bad, too cold today. They expect some more snow tonite and tomorrow but I think we will be fine.

7. I am grateful for spending my time with fruitful activities rather than just gazing into TV.

8. I am grateful for sitting at my kitchen table as a change; it is in a bright part of the house and being here feels nourishing…

9. I am grateful for getting mats for my house – now that it is winter and there is a lot of shovelling, it is essential to keep the entrance deck dry with the help of the mats. Previously what I had did not soak the liquid so I noticed liquid gathered on the floor – not a good practice. Now it is better!

10. I am grateful for the warm house on this winter day. I wish there is no one out there without a good shelter.

11. I am grateful for today being an off day; I love working but it is also essential to take a break from it so that when I return back to the office, I can have the irresistible urge to finish the tasks.

12. I am grateful for my enthusiasm to change the things in daily life – whether it is my hair, my clothes, the way I go through the day does not matter. I will not dwell on the negative, but rather make things that makes me feel good about myself and my life happen.

13. I am grateful for finding and buying essential food on sale today.

14. I am grateful for walking around 20 minutes on snowy sidewalks. It is difficult and my boots are not skid-resistant but they are doing good job. One nice thing about walking on difficult road conditions is the need to focus on walking/road for safety reasons. That helps my mind to focus on things other than what I usually do (mostly work problems that I need to solve).

15. I am grateful for being grateful 🙂

The life in the diary – IV

Fiction

———————————————————————-

February 6, 2013

I am in the hospital bed – my surgery was two days ago. I woke up 2 hours after it. The doctor did not visit me yet, but one of the residents did. She said the doctor did a good job and the surgery went well. My vital statistics are good and I am into recovery. I will stay in the hospital a couple of more days just to make sure there is no serious post-surgery concerns before I can be released. The resident says my doctor will tell me the future course of my medical care. I am waiting; it has been two days with no sign. I feel deprived but at the same time, I do not care. If it was a serious issue, I am sure my doctor would just fire the news.

The bed is not bad but the other patient in the room is noisy – I am happy for her that she has visitors; everybody needs that. But I am not happy with the long loud phone conversations. I feel like I know her entire ordeal, which is dare. She has broken her ankle and it got infected. I have seen the foot – it is all brownish, reddish, blackish colour. I felt for her. She hopes to get our of this without losing her foot. I totally understand and wish her good. I seem to be doing better than her.

I feel a lot better now prior to the surgery. I am not shaky or scared anymore. I am sure the surgery removed the bad cells and we will do our best to remove the rest too. It is good that the bulk of them is gone, the task at hand seems easier now. I know deep down that I will handle that well. It will be over sometime.

I have three different nurses come and check me, draw blood to do the tests. They are so nice; nurses should be given a higher level of respect and appreciation. For a patient there is nothing better than a smiling and affectionate look and words. On one occasion each, two of the nurses almost made me cry. The first one was a nurse who was trying to withdraw blood and was not able to find the vein or get the blood in two trials. She had to go thru my hand and she apologized for it. It was thin butterfly syringe that is really kind to my nerves. And when the nurse saw the blood filling the vial, she exclaimed with joy and said “bull’s eye!”. She is a sweetheart and I am wishing the best of everything for her. The second nurse I have seen only once so far and she asked me whether I would like her to help me with my bath and wash my back…. I wanted to cry so hard…. Affection is the kindest act ever. May she find happiness, health, and whatever she is wishing in life.

——————————————————————————————————-

The life in the diary – IV

All rights reserved.  © https://lifeasiinterpret.wordpress.com/

joy journal – January 2, 2015

I have not been writing to my joy journal for sometime – taking a break from the routine is a good idea, especially during the holiday season when I do almost nothing like the rest of the year – especially work – yet I feel like I am missing things if I do not put my thankfullness every day. So here are the things I have been grateful for lately;

1. I am grateful for breaking the routine daily life with the holidays – worked a little bit but nothing stressful.

2. Nine days of the holidays time-off have gone and two are left before we start the work on Monday. Today I was feeling a little bit saddened about the mini-holiday ending soon, but decided not to – I will enjoy every single day, every single moment – I have no reason not to.

3. I am grateful for spending time with my friends and having great time together. Laughter is a great medicine.

4. I am grateful for cleaning my home. I am serious 🙂 Once or twice a year I do deep cleaning. It feels right.

5. Although I have not de-clutter my place this year as I had planned, I am not getting crazy about it. Yes, it is always a great idea to de-clutter and refresh the place but this year I did not and so what? I can do it little by little sometime or maybe not till next holiday season. I am perfectly fine with that.

6. I am grateful for shopping! I have not purchased a lot of stuff, but bought trousers etc. that I always need or will need while they are on sale. I have bought like 6 pairs of trousers, which I predict will be enough this winter and next winter. So I do not have to think about running out of trousers any time soon.

7. I am glad I took the bus not the cab when I went to shopping; I saved quite a bit of money. That money was then used to purchase stuff that I need or will need.

8. I am grateful for visiting the thrifty store today; there are so many interesting items, such as small coffee cups that I had thought I would never see here. Yet there there were.

9. I am grateful for the gifts I have got from one of my friends – she gave me pair of leather gloves that I have been meaning to buy! What a useful gift! I am very thankful for them.

10. I am grateful for eating a variety of stuff this holiday season; yes I have gained weight, what else? 🙂 But I know I will go back to my weight in a couple of weeks – wait till I start work next Monday.

11. I am grateful for the glass plate I purchased today – I was so excited to see it. Such a beautiful design and type of glass. It fit just right to my coffee table and with its sparkling look, it brought a fresh dimension to that area of my house. I love, love, love that piece.

12. I am grateful that when I went for shopping, I did not get crazy and bought a lot of stuff. I just limited it to those that I would need immediately, but that is all. Nothing extra. This year I hope to keep it like this.

13. I have estimated my financial activity last year based on my accounts last year and this year in December. Well, I have not saved as much as I wanted – that is the truth. I am a little bit frustrated by this, but then I know I can do better this year. Plus, I should give myself credit for saving some money last year. It has been a tough year financially as I had some major repairs to be done at home. Hopefully this year will be  less challenging.

14. I am grateful for the dried blueberry tea I have discovered recently – together with green tea and lemon juice, it makes the perfect tea with a beautiful scent and a wonderful red colour. Delight for the eyes, nose, and the mouth!

15. I am grateful for it is not being a harsh winter yet. They predict some snow and frozen rain this weekend, which may or may not affect our daily life. I hope not; I will see how it goes.

16. I am grateful for the breakfasts I had every single day (except Dec 25th and Jan 1st, where everywhere is closed). Nice cafe houses, nice coffee, and great bagels – I could not ask for more.

17. I am grateful for the gifts a friend of mine sent; they are so beautiful that I am afraid to use them. What a pleasure to see them and liking them!

18. I am grateful for the books I have got from the thrifty store today – can you imagine a paper-back book is only 99 cents? Amazing! I have found two novels by two authors I enjoy reading today. That is such a nice feeling. Next time when I want to get rid of my books, I should donate there. Good idea.

19. I am grateful for the new year – 2015! That sounds like a nice year! The number is just fine. I want to be grateful for any day, any time, for just being there. I have a tendency to get stressed at work and relax at home, but I may as well relax at the office – why not? I would like to remind myself that I have flexible working hours and I do not even have to be in the office to do my job.

20. I am grateful for all the food, cleaning items and kitchen stuff, clothes, furniture and all other stuff I have. I have a tendency to buy in stock or in large numbers, which turns out to be a good practice. I have looked at my kitchen, pantry, and storage cabinets and I have no need to buy many items for a very long time. I like that. I feel abundant.

21. I am grateful for not being a materialistic person. I have never been. I am not interested in showing up with materials. I never had a designer item. I am grateful for this because lately a couple of my friends had made remarks about one of my sun-glasses, asking whether they were designer glasses. I am surprised by this remark, as if they were supposed to. Not everybody has the interest or the means to go get designer products, people.

22. I am grateful for having all these and many other points/events/people that make me feel good about myself and my life. I am grateful that I take my time to write, materialize them.

getting close to accepting the defeat

—————————————————————————————————–

I hope, my love, one day you will love someone who loves you at least as much as I do.

I hope you will find the sparks, excitement, happiness, and contentment with that girl who deserves you, your gentle manners, your wonderful character, and your lovely laughter.

I hope she will always cherish, respect, and love you; do the right things for you; make you laugh often; give you a warm hug and keep there when you need it; care for your health and well being; relentlessly support you in all of your endeavours, and admire you like nobody else.

I hope she will love your voice and make you hum happy songs all day long; lift you up when you kneeled down, stand next to you when all is troublesome, and be proud of you when you solve all. I hope one day you will marry her and have the daughters you wish for. I hope my love you will be the one to give me these great news.

Have the determination to open your heart to the beauties around you. Share yourself more so that all can know your greatness and human side. Be happy beyond your imagination. Write those pieces, produce those programs, and take the most spectacular photos. Even if life cuts short and none or only some of them happens, know before we perish, how thoroughly, passionately, and tirelessly you were loved. Despite all. Despite by me.

None has touched both my heart and my life as you have, none has left me with myself so fast, so many different times. I love you. One part of me will always be thinking about you, loving, caring, and admiring you.

—————————————————————————————————–

Kate’s short story – XLVII

All rights reserved.  © https://lifeasiinterpret.wordpress.com/

muse appreciation

I have a muse that makes me feel, love and hate, laugh and cry.

It is lovable but unattainable, spontaneous but powerful.

It can go to the deepest parts of my psyche.

I have a muse that owns half of what I feel.

the cold weather and appreciation

The winter shows itself today – it was -20 C with wind shield during the day and I am assuming it is less right now. Quite unusual for where I live; usually in winter the temperature would not go below 0C.

There is something nice about the cold weather, though. It made me appreciate the warmth of my home and my office. It makes me want to find ways to make insulation better at my home. I notice for example the weather strip of the back door is not large enough and the cold weather pours in through between the door and the wall. Would a nice, long, thick curtain help stop the cold air move in? Perhaps. It is worth giving it a try.

I love having my throw on my lap, too. It is the source of an effortless warmth. How about soup and tea? Warmth, warmth, more warmth 🙂 It is awesome to have all of these, a safe and sound house to stay, heating and power, clothes and throws, and the hot drinks. I am grateful for all that make the winter manageable.