Posts

Posted on

Gratitudes 2018, Day 12

  1. Gratitudes. Writing these can be fun—hopefully, reading them is kinda fun as well—but it makes me reflect on the day (or further back) and think about how blessed I’ve been and how many great things I have in my life. And if I make a point of thinking hard enough, I should never have to repeat anything (except maybe sunshine and pizza). There are always more things to be grateful for each and every day. (You’re all welcome to do a little reflection of your own, too. Because I’m sure you needed my permission, right?)

  2. Sunshine and pizza. Because they’re sunshine and pizza.

  3. Being able to look over old blog posts. Remember what I said about never having to repeat anything? It never hurts to double-check…

  4. Wireless headphones. When I was running on the treadmill yesterday (I lasted a little longer than five minutes), I was wearing headphones that were attached to my cell phone. As I ran, the wire bounced back and forth. My arms moved forward and backward. Insert some random geometry and physics equations here and you’ll find the two points of intersection between my hands and the wire that led to my phone getting pulled off the treadmill and dropped onto the floor. Yes, you read that right: two points of intersection. (Granted, I haven’t used my new wireless headphones at the gym yet, but I like the idea of not having to worry about my phone hitting the floor unless I pick it up and throw it down in frustration because iTunes keeps downloading songs after I delete them.)

  5. Protective cell phone cases. Remember what I said about two points of intersection? My phone survived both falls. And it may survive more in the future if iTunes keeps messing with my music selection.

  6. Learning how to prevent iTunes from downloading songs after I delete them. Well, there goes that excuse for my phone ending up on the floor…

Posted on

Gratitudes 2018, Day 11

  1. Community theater… theatre… pick your favorite spelling. Teresa and I went to see a show tonight, we’ve seen shows together in the past, we’ve been in shows in the past… that’s how we met. Community theater… theatre… it holds a special place in my heart.

  2. Arsenic and Old Lace. The play where Teresa and I met. I played Mortimer, the male lead. She played a smaller role in the show. Now she’s my female lead, my love interest, the set designer, the orchestra conductor, the extras wrangler… she does a lot of stuff.

  3. Harvey. The play we saw tonight at the Lakeville Area Arts Center. Fun show, fun cast, lots of laughs.

  4. Exercise. “It’s air conditioned in here, but I’m breaking out in a sweat, I’m short of breath, I’m light-headed, my whole body aches… I’ve only been on the treadmill for five minutes?!?!”

  5. The Hy-Vee bakery. After working out at the gym, we went to Hy-Vee to see if they could make us some specialty cookies. Sure, you brought flowers for some cast members, but did you bring them a cookie with a rabbit made of frosting on it?

Posted on

Gratitudes 2018, Day 10

  1. Rain. Water from the sky. Moisture falling from the clouds. Mother Nature’s sprinkler system.

  2. Being inside when it’s raining. I’m thinking specifically about walking the dogs this morning. Maybe Berkley doesn’t like being rushed, but I liked getting inside before the dark clouds above our heads opened up and started to dump water all over us. It sprinkled a little, but five minutes later… we would have been swimming home.

  3. Rain jackets. The rain hadn’t stopped by the time I needed to leave for work, but at least I could keep the upper half of me dry running to and from the car.

  4. Water bottles. I’m talking about the reusable kind vs. bottled water. I keep mine on my desk and I end up drinking a lot more water than if I had to run to the drinking fountain every time I felt thirsty. Good way to get exercise; bad way to stay hydrated.

  5. Towels. (Might as well stick with the water theme while I’m thinking about it, right?) A good way to dry off after a hot shower.

  6. Hot showers. A good way to get wet before using a towel.

Posted on

Gratitudes 2018, Day 9

  1. Fried zucchini. It was an experiment today: dip the slices in egg, then panko crumbs that were mixed with some salt and pepper… wow. That is what was for dinner.

  2. Headphones/earbuds. I keep myself plugged in at work so I can listen to music and podcasts and I’ve reached the point of keeping one in all the time while letting the other dangle freely. Sure, people might need to yell to get my attention sometimes when they’re both in my ears, but it also means I can ignore people (even when there’s nothing playing) and they won’t get offended.

  3. Staying awake this morning. Teresa’s alarm goes off at 4:00am on workdays. I wake up so I can help walk the dogs. Typically, I’ll go back to bed since I don’t have to get up for a few hours, but this morning, I stayed up to write the blog entry I posted this morning. Even though I was tired when I left the house, I felt really good.

  4. Writing. It had been a really long time since I’d written anything. A reeeeeally long time. I don’t remember if there was one particular moment, but I eventually wrote a new blog entry. And then another. And another. And now look at what’s happened: I’m writing on a consistent basis and I left the house this morning on a writer’s high.

  5. Sleep. And I have some catching up to do tonight, too.

Posted on

You think you’re so special?

That thought (among others) has been rolling around in my head since I got the email from WordPress.com about Facebook not allowing Publicize to automatically share blog entries on my profile anymore. That, plus a handful of videos on YouTube talking about the effects that social media can have on the brain. So it’s really been a question of why I want to put my writing on Facebook at all.

I mean, I posted a picture of Teresa’s engagement ring in part to show everyone we were engaged. But I also kept going back to Facebook to look at the picture and see how the number of likes and loves and all of the other reactions continued to climb. So Teresa and I were engaged and I felt… important? Popular? Special?

But when it comes to blog entries, that part isn’t really there. It’s not like I’m publishing a book or achieving some other impressive goal. This is just me writing and the only “like” I need is mine.

Of course, I could look at an even broader picture and ask why I’m publishing anything online in the first place. I can get my own approval if I’m writing something by hand or typing it on my laptop and never sharing it. So why? Do I crave acceptance that badly? Do I need people’s attention and approval that much? What makes me so special?

I guess part of it is that, yes, I do enjoy a bit of the spotlight. I like to see people’s reactions when I create something. It’s the same reason why I enjoy community theater: I get to enjoy being part of the cast of a show, make something come alive on stage that was originally just words on paper and I get to entertain people. I get to hear them laugh and gasp and applaud. And that happens because of me.

If you’re reading this, I doubt you’re having any of those three reactions. (If you’re applauding, you may have some explaining to do to the other people in the library…) But maybe you’re interested. Maybe you’re smiling. Maybe… just maybe… you’re entertained. And I guess that’s the other part of it.

It’s not just “I’m so special.” It’s “Everyone who’s reading this is so special—All three of them!—and I’d like to make their day a little brighter. A little greater. A little more special.” I could easily hoard all of my writing to myself, keep it tucked away so no one else could ever read it. Finish a story, essay, journal entry, blog post, look over it once or twice more for mistakes or typos, then throw it into the fire where no human eyes will ever see it again. Or just delete it if I wrote it on my laptop—throwing my laptop into the fire seems a bit extreme.

So I’m doing this for you, faithful readers! Because you’re so special! … Okay, it’s partly for me, too, but mostly for you, amirite? No? Drat…

When this popped into my head yesterday, I was thinking about writing gratitudes on Facebook instead of just my blog. I mean, Facebook is where it all started. There was a “gratitude challenge” going around where you were supposed to write down three things that made you feel grateful for five days. Oh, and you were supposed to tag three of your friends each day to get them to be more grateful, too. I was… someone’s second day, I think, so it’s nice to know I wasn’t an afterthought.

And so I did the challenge. Half of the challenge. I wrote three gratitudes a day, but never tagged anyone. I guess it was partly because I didn’t want to be a nuisance and partly because I didn’t want anyone to be an afterthought. Or forget someone altogether. That’d be an embarrassment, not a gratitude.

Then after those first five days… I kept going. For a month. 33 days with just one on the last day. 100 gratitudes. (Technically, I think it was only 99: I was grateful for pizza two days in a row. Because pizza.) And it felt good. I felt grateful, maybe other people felt grateful… the Facebook status messages were getting some likes, so I guess some people were entertained, too.

So that was part of the drive that kept me going for so long the last time and thus part of the reason I’m copying and pasting gratitudes from my blog to Facebook now: other people. It wasn’t just “Hey, I’m keeping them entertained!” It was also “Hey, they’re expecting another one today!” They provided a sense of accountability. Even if I felt a little tired or the clock was approaching midnight, I couldn’t just miss a day… the gratitudes were primarily for me, but knowing that other people were reading them was a reason to keep going. And feeling even more grateful about my life and the blessings I’ve been given. And pizza. Because pizza.

Posted on

Gratitudes 2018, Day 8

  1. Email. WordPress.com sent me a message about how Facebook is planning to remove my blog’s ability to post entries onto my profile page. If I had a page instead of a profile, it wouldn’t be a problem. Well, I may be awesome, but probably not awesome enough to justify creating a page to represent that awesomeness, sooooo… maybe I’ll start copying and pasting these into status messages, I dunno. Regardless, I’ll probably shut off the Publicize function for Facebook so I don’t forget and then one day start getting pissed off because my blog entries aren’t showing up on my profile page anymore.

  2. Facebook. Even with all of its nuisances and irritations, it’s an amazing tool that helps me stay connected with family and friends all over the world.

  3. Post-It notes. Good for writing down notes and sticking them to random things like books, walls, mirrors, your enemies’ backs, etc.

  4. The alarm on my phone. It wakes me up when I need it to and then sometimes I even get up right away instead of hitting the snooze button.

  5. All of my faithful readers. Which could possibly be no one. I could be shouting into the abyss while writing this, but… hey, at least I’m a faithful reader of what I write. (Am I allowed to be grateful for myself? I think, therefore I’m grateful? Hmmm…)