Forget everyone else; love, care, and cherish yourself first. Let 2019 be the year of Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation!
Happens to be Father’s Day.
My dear dad – I miss you…and I love you… I have not forgotten you, as I was afraid of in the initial phases of grief. I am very happy with this 🙂 Till I see you again, rest in peace.
Happy Father’s Days to all fathers, all who want to be a father, and who were once a father.
You are loved more than you can imagine.
I started the week high energy and started to feel tired again since Wednesday. Since the Holidays it has been non-stop – what was I expecting? I need a break.
How are you all holding up? Did you get the vaccines yet? I am still not eligible – because of my age, but hoping soon it will get to my age group. I cannot wait. The new announcements that it is an aerosol transmission/airborne is alarming me – how are we going to ventilate all these workplaces, schools, and residences? If my work place offers half working from home program, boy, I will take it right away. Vaccine or not, have no interest in getting anywhere close this virus.
Our weather is gray nowadays. Maybe we will see blue sky and sun this weekend. It would be so nice. There is something so great about the Spring. It is energizing and tell us that the hibernation season is over. We can rejuvenate.
So, how exactly am I planning to rejuvenate? I have done well walking just for the love of walking in the early week. Seeing the neighbourhood, trees, and houses are always a delight. I love the crisp air that “washes” my face and gives me tremendous peace. Walking in the mornings and evenings are certainly great. I cannot wait to do this more regularly. But, what else? Will I declutter? Will I change the furniture? What will I do?? Dilemma. And mystery 🙂
Despite being in a lock-down in the last 14 months, I have not gained weight. What a miracle… Did you? Many people have. Maybe this is one of these fortunate times that I was spared of extra fat. I wanna laugh, but I am also serious. It feels great to be on the lucky side 🙂
My foster cat Mona is doing well. Such a sweet heart. She eats less now and is losing weight. We waste quite a bit of wet food, but honestly, as long as she is well, I am okay with this. Why are the cans so big? A kitty cannot eat the entire 156 grams of food in 3-4 hours, so what is the point?
Anyways, let’s focus on the positive that Mona is well. I am well. My family is well. Spring is here. I had a little increase in my salary so I feel great about it. I am abundant and have everything I need. I can contribute to the animal rescue organization by covering cost of some of the food and litter. My friends check on me. I can walk, I am functional. My antidepressant works. I can take things much easier and and feeling absolutely better.
I saw a blog by a medical practitioner the other day with a title asking Do antidepressants work? Boy, please do not use this kind of titles – it sounds like you are suspicious. In my experience, yes they do work. My medication may not work someone else, and they can hopefully find relief in another drug (if they are interested in taking a medication). I feel like the fact that sometimes we are put in places where we need to defend our choices or our antidepressants is mind-blowing. Ask me and my experience.
How is the economy going on where you are? It is surprising me that the market is still doing high. Prices are going up, though. My favorite yogurt has increased like 50 cents a tub, and I am hoarding it whenever it is on sale. I can eat around 5-7 tubs of yogurt per week, so hoarding is for a short time only, and it works well, In a given day I probably have like 10 tubs in my fridge. You can call me freak if you want, but it does not change the fact that it is my favorite evening/night snack. I also use it liberally with meals and soups. Yogurt is good and much better than McDonald’s.
When was the last time I ate from McDonald’s? Hard to remember. Wendy’s possibly, yes. But not McDonald’s in decades..
Anyways, seems like I am very talkative tonite 🙂 I will cut it out here and say that please keep yourself safe, have hope that this too shall pass, and enjoy whatever you have and give you joy.
My long-lasting and recent favorite Netflix series ended the other day and I am desperately looking for a series that will keep me occupied with interest. Shout out any suggestions.
I am having another loooong week, but that is okay. Slowly, many things are progressing and I feel okay with this. Some good news are also coming to my way, too. Just yesterday I got an invitation to speak at a professional meeting and I am delighted. A colleague of mine helped solve an issue this evening, and I could not be happier. He is my partner in a project and he has done his part really well. Respect. This morning I had a 2 hours presentation, the longest I have ever done remotely, and it went so well! Lots to celebrate. Lots to cherish.
My two hours presentation had concerned me quite a bit until I delivered it. I have yet another one coming in a couple of months. I do not like to just speak, but involve everyone – as much as possible – in the discussion, questions, or comments. In a remote environment, many of these things are quite challenging. Today’s session was a small group, so it was easier to make it interactive. But I have a large one coming, with potentially around 60 attendees. How to manage such a size and make people engaged and attract their attention?
One thing I want to try is to use the poll function. I have tried it myself but was not sure whether it really worked. So I opted out using it today. But with the big presentation, I need to establish it and get experienced with it. The good thing is that I have time to figure this out. I can also ask for IT’s help – but honestly I want to learn and apply it myself so that I can keep doing it independently. So next week or so, I will rush after learning the poll function.
My foster cat Mona is doing well. Her latest health scare is healing and I could not be happier. The panic I felt was very real. In a couple of days it subsidized. I was able to look at her belly closely and take pics and video clips (to send to rescue organization). The general idea was to “keep an eye on it, and if it gets worse in a couple of days, we will get her to a vet”. Thankfully, it started to heal at that time. Happiness 🙂
This incidence made me think quite a bit. This is the first time I have someone else in my home since my late 20’s (yes, I treat her like a person..). First time I am closely responsible for helping someone else. The panic I felt – many people felt it so much earlier in life. They got experienced and dealt with such things much successfully while I was living my solo life. Imagine, how late I am in experiencing some of life experiences? 🙂
Spring is still far away but at least we will have brighter days, starting this weekend (daylight savings). I am not naive to think that Spring will just show up in April – April is often our most turbulent and unpredictable month. End of May is a much better approximate time for the start of Spring. I cannot wait to work in my yard, hug my trees, admire all the life forms, and gaze at the neighbourhood. Ahh, the sweet Spring. Hope you will bring us a much safer and enjoyable days.
Stay safe folks.
Happy Sunday folks – wherever you are, I hope you are having a resting and enjoyable day.
Folks,
I wish you the greatest year and wonderful experiences ever in 2021!
I know the situation is far from being normal and positive, but we must keep the faith in wonderful things happening and our hope that it will get better with time.
I feel selfish to note this here, but I think 2020 was one of the best years of my life. I know… I am sorry that I can say this…..But finding good things in our ordinary life, slowing down, daring for things that I wanted but did not (aka fostering a lovely cat), and making good progress in some areas – both personally and professionally – are all what make me feel grateful for the lock-down.
These being said, I continue to be worried about my own and my family’s health and safety during the pandemic. I also feel the burden of being one of the survivors of this pandemic, while millions have died so far in 2020…..It is a real burden.
This last one is particularly important – let’s always remember that labeling 2020 with hardship and pain only, and wishing it be gone will not change anything…. Pandemic is here – people suffer and have suffered. We do not know what the next day will bring.
But, maybe it will bring A GOOD thing.
Let’s remember to remember the wonderful things happening in our lives and in others’ lives. We owe it to our collective well-being.
Have a great 2021 and stay safe.
I think I am done! I did close up a number of items/projects with my team members and we are ready to start the Holiday season. Yahoo 🙂
Honestly, I was just struggling to finish all of these. Or, this is what I thought. It turns out that we actually did very well and things went well today as well. So, I have nothing left to do tomorrow. As of this evening, the Holiday Season Starts for me and my team.
Completing what you planned to do right before a break is one of the most satisfying feelings. I could not be happier 🙂
Today I also got notifications for the approval of a report by our group and the approval of a project of mine 🙂 It is as if today was supposed to be a blessing for me. Let me cherish this for a moment…
Yest, despite all of these positive and satisfying experiences, I feel less excited than I normally would. I believe this is the phase where you are so tired that you cannot even enjoy your accomplishments.
To commemorate this evening and the accomplishments of the day, I cooked fried beans and I am in love. Such a creamy and tasty meal. This was my second trial of friend beans and as a beans lover, I cannot imagine how much I was missing by not eating this food more routinely. It has become one of my top food in the list.
To further enjoy the start of my Holidays break, tomorrow I plan to go visit a thrift store 🙂 Now, this is indeed very exciting – cannot wait!
Friends – hope you all are gonna have a relaxing, happy, and comfortable Holiday Season. Please take care of yourself and those around you and those who need help & support. Stay safe and all the best.
Just yesterday I was thinking how much I enjoy working from home. It works for me.
I am not sure of my work-place’s future steps. So far we all have been increasingly distancing ourselves from work. There will come a time when they will say “hey, what have you produced during all these times? What else can you do for us?“.
I will be ready then.
This is the 6th week. I kind of have a routine. I wake up around 7 am, brew coffee, browse news and emails, and start working. I often continue till 4-5 pm. I also walk twice a day; one short (around 25 min) and one long (around an hour). The weather is permissive, sky is blue, and walking is relaxing. It is one of my quality of time activities.
The other would be tea. At around noon every day, I brew tea with lemon and ginger. Top it with honey and Voila! You have a great, healing drink at your hands 🙂
The news are often negative and pessimistic. While I like to read each day, I try to stay away from thinking too pessimistically about COVID-19. I want to remind myself day it has already been 4 months that we have been surviving this pandemic. We are going through it. My sympathies to all who have lost a loved one to this disease. Or jobs.
I do not know how long the Canadian economy will hold up. I do not know how long my work-place will keep floating, either. I try not to think about the potential lay offs, but honestly. If there is a time that they will attempt this, it is this time. I am grateful for each salary cheque I receive. Honestly. One cheque at a time.
Life has changed so much. I could make plans for long-term investments and so on. Not anymore. I already lost a portion of my investments when the markets went down. I do not want to get crazy about it. I hope that things will get better.
In the middle of all of these, what is more important is that I try to sort what and who is important and what/who is not. It is fun. The best way to do this is to take a break from work. In the last while, I worked almost everyday. I have been meaning to take a break since February. Perhaps next week I will take a couple of days off and read books. Reflect on life. Reflect on issues and wishes.
Stay well, everyone. Wherever you are, I hope you are healthy, have food, shelter, and safety.
My day has started early, at around 6 am. That makes it a quiet start to the day, which is very enjoyable.
It is January 1st.
It is 2020.
It sounds like a great year to me; I may have got a cold, sneezing and with runny nose, and having headache as a result, but new year is new year, and I am hopeful.
Do you also think that 2020 (twenty-twenty) looks and sounds full, energetic, hopeful, real, and soft to you?
Perhaps it will be a kind year. Perhaps we will finally have that world peace, a positive and global economy, perfect access to human rights, education and health care services we all deserve, and bounty of opportunities and positive experiences.
Who knows?
Hope is hope. There is a reason that hope has survived centuries – these may all happen.
Wishing all of us a great 2020.
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?
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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.
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Hope 2019 is treating you all with Ease, Comfort, and Appreciation 🙂
To my surprise, I did not sleep long and well. But one thing was always in my mind –Â 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
It is quite early and enjoying coffee with a nice piece of music at the background is priceless. I hope you all are having a great Sunday and my fellow Canadians, I hope you are having a great Thanksgiving weekend!
I am going for a social/dinner tonite by good friends – I cannot wait. Until then, my aim is to move the work at hand. It has been another busy time period and I am possibly looking for extension of it to the next year. I am ready, though. Even though it is stressful and i need to figure out and work out a lot of things, this is not the first time I have had such a time. I can do this!
As a matter of fact, the first thing I have done this morning was finishing some lagging work instead of trying to fall back to sleep. I feel quite content right now that one thing is crossed off my to-do-list. I plan to continue like this the whole day and bake a wonderful sourdough loaf in the afternoon.
Have a great Sunday everyone and may you always be happy, healthy, and content with yourself, your work, and your life as a whole 🙂
One of these days that I am calm and feeling good about myself and the work.
One of my team members and I finished a big project today, which was on the go for 3.5 years. I cannot believe. She made that happen and she is leaving soon to move on with a better career. I could not be happier and more proud of her. May she always find success, happiness, and support in life. She has got my full blessing.
I feel like accomplished now a little bit and am feeling hopeful and excited about my work again. Results of this project will be used in many other projects and noone in the world has ever produced such results. The more I think about it, the more I am realizing what a unique and exciting project this was. I must be happy and proud of myself as well!
This realization brings me some sort of confidence and excitement – I have done very well indeed. There is hope that I will sign under the many more difficult and exciting projects. This is such a much needed feeling for me. I would not be surprised if I shed some tears out of joy 🙂
Now I have space for future projects and my calendar is more permissive to move on with others that I have been planning. Happiness! 🙂
I have four presentations to do withing the next four weeks – two of them being this week. I am ready for them. The other two, on the other hand, needs work. Ok – I can do this! After that my next biggest task will be writing a new type of report, which I am looking forward to. It will be challenging at the beginning, we have been keeping it under the radar for some time, and now I will have time to work on it. Something fresh, interesting, and developing me further as a professional. Excitement!
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I was telling one of my friends today that I wonder how I and my life will develop in the next three years. I know that I have been changing my approach to others at work, becoming a little bit more focused on my own interests and reducing my commitment to others’ work, being interested in challenging and developing myself by taking new roles and responsibilities, becoming more assertive, and most importantly, questioning my own look at my life. I told my friend today that I sometimes think about resignment. Not that I want to but I guess it is one way to free myself from all the little issues and attitudes that bother me. Thinking about resignment gives me some kind of relief from the current issues. It also helps me with un-attaching myself from work. I was always overly committed to work and as such have ignored the other important things in life.
What are the important things in life?
Certainly my family is important.
I am important.
It is time that I let these realizations sink into my mind…
It is exciting that I am curious about my future, don’t you think? 🙂 This is certainly becoming an exciting anticipation for me – I want my future to be better, happier, healthier, and more meaningful. I want to have dreams and plans. I want to do different things. I want to feel good about myself and my frequent efforts to do so!
May the next days bring joy, success, happiness, health, and good people, experiences, memories, and opportunities to all of us 🙂
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 🙂
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May this year be an opportunity to grow, accomplish our goals, improve our kindness and understanding, and do something that makes a wider positive difference.
May we see the beauty around us more, have less cluttered mind and smaller ego, have fantastic plans for ourselves, family, and community/humanity.
May those need food, shelter, safety, health care and mental support be given these without much of a struggle.
May we, despite our differences in opinions, habits, and ideals, re-find our common ground and focus on being human, being a part of the nature, and strengthen our collective consciousness.
May we take a moment each day and cherish those who are alive and remember those who passed away with gratitude, affection, and understanding.
May we make each day worth living and loving.
I have been very fond of my friends and teachers/mentors and every Dec 31st, I would send a short but personalized email to each one of them to express good wishes for the coming year.
I stopped doing this last year. Last year I wanted to see who would email me before I email them. Only one friend of mine and a previous mentor of mine did this. These people deserve the best.
I was frustrated with the rest and this year too I am not going to send my traditional happy new years emails. I want to see who would take their time, remember me, and send me good vibes. I am not very hopeful, but who knows maybe one or two people will be doing it. If not, my motto will be “Let’s declutter that part of life, too“.
The other two, on the other hand, have been emailed or will be emailed tonite. They have a special place in my heart.
And to you all out there, I do not know you personally but I am extending what I would say to my family – Happy New Year! May 2018 be an exceptional year with lots of positive vibes, memories, and experiences. Live it to the end and live it to the fullest!
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Life is good, my friends.
We reached yet another Sunday. I hope many of you, if not all, are spending today with joy, relaxation, family and friends, and are feeling just well and awesome 🙂
Here is a song to spice today up – enjoy 🙂
Just hours from starting dating documents with 2017 🙂  I just wanted to say happy new year to everyone – hope it will bring joy, mental clarity, re-focus, better handling abilities, opportunities, health, and well being to everyone. Also Peace.
And I say this in case you have not noticed:
Be like life. Life is perfectly imperfect! 🙂
cheers
I have been thinking, and I have been thinking really hard, and I came to the conclusion that I have no particular resolution for 2017.
The past year I have made some significant changes in my life; such as an effective budget; doing light stretches and weight training to strengthen my lower back, arms, shoulders, and abs; walking whenever I can; Â losing weight slowly without a hard diet or heavy exercise regimen; feeling generally better, more energetic, and sometimes even happy; having a low waste life-style and decluttering my home regularly (though it was one thing in my list that I could not find time to do this holiday season yet), etc.
Overall, I seem to be doing what matters to me as a person. I think the majority of these have mattered to me for a very long time, so I am happy with 2016 🙂
But, I have feelings… I miss my family. Just this afternoon it hit me hard once again that I am not sure whether being away from them, being here where I am, and doing the work I do are all worth it.
Honestly I do not think it does. But I am also hesitant to return back – I feel okay where I am. Not overly happy or content, but okay. I have a life here.
Yet, I keep missing them.. This is a wonderful thing actually – it does hurt, but I am happy I have these feelings toward my family.
Just yesterday I was thinking maybe this year too I will not try to structure my life by resolutions, but rather take the new year as it develops. Maybe I should even let it surprise me (and, hopefully in a positive way).
Maybe not looking for only a pre-determined wish is a good thing. Maybe this way I can see the opportunities as they arise, rather than seeing what I make my mind to focus and see (a.k.a. resolutions).
I will let 2017 be a spontaneous year full of unexpected opportunities, love, peace, success, happiness, family time, and health.
May your new year too be filled with beauty and with people and experiences that will give a meaning to your life and tremendous joy to you 🙂
Happy new year everyone! 🙂
Happy Friday everyone!
I hope all is fine, healthy, and being hopeful and with food on the table, clothes on the back, and a shelter around to keep warm.
Warm wishes to everyone on this chilly winter night 🙂
There is a serenity in starting a new year – facing a new date to write on paper.
Being aware of an upcoming new period has been my favourite in the last few years during holiday season- it does give me a chance to reflect, notice, and note the past events, developments, things to finally change, and to hope and plan for the better days in near future. I also realize how much time has elapsed since last time whatever has happened or has not happened – that is quite powerful;  I kinda understand, crystal clear, that it is time to let go.
So let me let go – worries, loves, interests, and anything else that does not serve me good. Let me create the mind-set to make new habits, new beginnings, new excitements, and new approaches to myself, others, my work, and my life. I have one life half-lived; let me make the rest of it content, happy, healthy, and interesting. Let me make it worth living.
Life as I interpret it 