Tag: gratitude

1. Stretching. Sometimes it feels like some of my muscles are on the verge of cramping at bedtime, so it’s nice to have a way to prevent that from waking me up at night. Plus it’s been a long time since I could, but I can almost touch my toes with straight legs again.

2. Our comforter. Not really necessary at this time of year, but when it’s cold outside, it helps keep me warm at night.

3. Our Sleep Number bed. We have the same level of firmness, but it’s still nice to have the ability to change it if we wanted to. Plus it’s a king, which means it’s more than “almost big enough” for the four of us.

4. Our Flex Fit bed frame. We can lie in bed or sit up in bed or pick some position in the middle. What’s important is that I can sit in bed and have back support without involving any pillows.

5. Sleep. Good and good for you. I should try to get some now. G’night.

1. Cities Sports Connection. I know, I know—it’s only been a couple days since it was on my list of gratitudes, but it was only a couple days between registering for their fall league as a free agent and ending up on a soccer team, so there ya go. I’m grateful that I’ll get to play soccer again and I’m grateful that CSC is making it happen.

2. Playing soccer. See: above.

3. Sunflower seeds. A few weeks ago, we found a sale on sunflower seeds if we bought two 50-pound bags, sooooo… store one in the garage. The hole in the bag with seeds spilled out around it is how we confirmed that there was a mouse in the garage.

4. Fleet Farm. A store filled with all sorts of random products. If you’re looking for something out of the ordinary, odds are good you could find it there.

5. Mouse traps. Fleet Farm has those, too. And it only took one night to officially confirm that it does trap mice. In this case, by the head. I’m pretty sure the strength of the spring that snapped the trap shut meant it died quick and easy.

6. Dead mice. One down, how many more to go…

1. Bonnie’s birthday. My niece Bonnie turned 5 today. That’s really old. Just ask her.

2. High-fives. “How old are you? [holds up one hand] 5? Gimme five!” [slaps your hand as hard as she can… because that’s how five-year-olds roll]

3. The Hilltop. A quaint little restaurant in Edina, MN that’s great for small family birthday parties.

4. Harmonized Eggs. Scrambled eggs with ham, green onions, cream cheese and hollandaise. If you’re trying to lose weight, don’t even breathe next to it.

5. Wrapping paper. Aside from its ability to conceal gifts from the birthday girl, that stuff is seriously fun to tear to shreds when opening said gifts.

1. Extra sleep. After a few days of struggling not to fall asleep at work, it’s good stuff.

2. Carpooling. Someone else can drive, you can have a conversation with someone besides yourself and it saves gas money.

3. Checks. Because we haven’t achieved a paperless society yet and not everything can get paid online or with a credit card.

4. Blu-ray players. I thought my laptop could play movies on blu-ray. I was wrong. Thankfully, we have a player hooked up to the TV, so we can watch movies on a big screen instead.

5. Our king-sized bed. We used to have a queen-sized bed for two humans and two small dogs. There was almost enough room for all four of us… almost enough room…

Thank God it’s the weekend! Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing to be grateful for at work…

1. Employee of the Month awards. It’s a way to recognize employees for all of their hard work and dedication to the organization.

2. Employee of the Month wall displays. In the case of my work, they leave all 12 months on the wall. You can go back and look at October through December 2017, then January 2018, February 2018, March 2018, April… 2017. So either that’s the month that management stopped caring about the award or all of the employees started sucking really bad in April and haven’t improved since then.

3. National Peanut Day. It was actually yesterday, which is the day we all got an email to let us know people would be delivering bags of peanuts to celebrate the event. (I chose honey roasted. Because they’re yummy. And is this the proper place to make a joke about someone putting nuts in my hand? I think so, too.)

4. Tailgating. We were getting ready for the Vikings-Packers game on Sunday, so there were burgers and hot dogs, s’mores, lots of chips and desserts… also yummy.

5. Wind. The cardboard box holding the napkins kept getting lighter as more people kept taking them. Then there was a sudden gust of wind, the box tumbled off the table and napkins went everywhere. Some caught another gust of wind and I’m pretty sure they’re sitting on top of the building right now. Maybe not great for the environment, but still good lunchtime entertainment.