Category: Gratitudes

I know I’m cheating a little by backdating this to yesterday, but I didn’t have a whole lot of time to write anything. Because of the 48-Hour Film Project, I woke up about 6:30am, was out the door at 7:15am and got home around 2:15am. No computer access during the day = no blog entry. Which isn’t to say that I’m not grateful for stuff today.

1. The 48-Hour Film Project — I’m sure I’ll be writing a separate blog entry about it eventually, but for now, suffice it to say that I had a lot of fun.
2. My prescription sport goggles — For my role in the movie, I wore them instead of my usual glasses.
3. Caffeine — I’m running on about three hours of sleep over the last two days and it did a very good job keeping me awake earlier tonight. I’m tired enough that I have double vision and I’ve been doing the tired head bob, but I was okay earlier.
4. Bonfires — Someone wanted marshmallows or smores, beer and guitars around the fire, but I was just happy to stay warm on a cool night.
5. Wet Wipes — They’re good for removing makeup after a play or movie shoot. They won’t probably won’t get the makeup off the inside of my shirt collar, but at least my skin is clean so I won’t leave any weird streaks of color on my pillow tonight.

After a day of 100+ degree heat, it would be pretty easy to use air conditioning as three of the things I was grateful for yesterday (the house, my car, at Augsburg), but I’m trying not to repeat myself.

1. Minnesota weather — As contradictory as that may seem, I’m grateful that the high temperature one day can be over 20 degrees lower than the day before.
2. Massages — They help my muscles relax… or at least they will once my muscles stop being so tense all the time.
3. L.I.P. Scarlet Garcia — This blog entry says that the Scarlet Garcia who was murdered a few years ago wasn’t my partner and it usually gets one or two hits a day.
4. Scarlet Garcia — She’s probably the best partner I could have had on Beauty and the Geek.
5. Informal dress codes — I can go to class at Augsburg in a t-shirt and shorts when it’s reeeeeally hot outside.

It’s getting close to summer camp for the Scout troop and they’ve got a beach with canoes, sailboats, etc. To use the boats and the entire swim area, you need to pass the swimmers’ test. To take the swim test at camp, you have to stand in a loooooong line filled with lots of other Scouts and adults. We like to avoid that by doing the testing here.

1. Swimming pools — I helped 18 Scouts and adults take their swim tests here at home so they wouldn’t have to do it at camp.
2. My lifeguard certification — I have the authority to do swim testing.
3. Wacky Noodles — I used one of those long foam tubes as my “lifesaving device” for the swim testing. I also used it to slap the water to get the swimmers’ attention. (Thankfully, I didn’t leave any permanent marks on any of the kids.)
4. Quesadillas — Dinner was yummy.
5. “Shawn’s Favorite Hotdish” — It’s been my favorite since I was a kid: egg noodles, ground beef, corn, mushroom soup and cheese all mixed together and seasoned with garlic powder. I ate some for Dinner #2 and it was yummy as well.

Sunday was hot and toasty outside. My team was playing soccer (I was standing on the sideline… I need to have the doc take a look at my knee to see if I did something bad to it) and we play on turf with a lot of little rubber bits that keep it vaguely soft. They also make the field really hot under the sun, thus making your feet really hot inside your shoes.

1. Shorts — The air flow around my legs helps cool me down.
2. Sunscreen — It prevents the sun from turning my nose into a Krispy Kritter.
3. Air conditioning — Can you sense a theme here?
4. The WaZoo! Show — I’ve been part of the group for about nine years now and I have fun getting together with a bunch of people to read scripts once a month.
5. Khan’s Mongolian Barbeque — We eat there afterward and the food is mighty tasty.

I was watching a video today of a presentation made by Shawn Achor. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the version I watched anywhere, but there’s a similar presentation on YouTube (which isn’t as good, of course). I decided to include a link to the third part of the “backup version” in here, so to speak, because I think it’s worth watching.

Out of that list of ways to enhance our happiness, the easiest seems like the gratitudes. (I could write a journal, but I tried that in Norway and ran out of steam pretty quickly… it’s tough when it takes me four single-spaced pages in a Word file to recap the events of the day.) So for the next 21 days, I’m going to write five things I’m grateful for. He recommends doing them first thing in the morning, but there are days when first thing in the morning for me is get dressed, grab food and run out the door. And some days, grabbing food isn’t on that list, either.

You’re all welcome to join me and, if you’re not sure where to start, you’re all welcome to reference a blog entry I wrote back in 2006: Reasons to be thankful. You can think of the grown-up ones, you can think of the simple ones—just be sure that you’re grateful for them.

Today’s list:

1. Mountain Dew — I like the flavor, it’s got caffeine and I hate coffee. I mean HAAAAAAAAAAAATE coffee.
2. Peter Stark — The professor for my Leadership course in the MBA program. He’s a smart guy. I learned a lot.
3. My warm bed at night — Sleep is awesome.
4. Sunshine — It’s bright, shiny, warm and a nice contrast to the recent gloomy, cloudy Memorial Day weekend.
5. Friendship — ‘Cause I get by with a little help from my friends.