Periodically reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful

1. Our fabulous new dog. He is the sweetest big, lug of a dog. Training is going very well. We made him concentrate very hard on walking this morning and now he is collapsed in my lap.
2. Coffee
3. My friend with whom I spent the afternoon yesterday. She and I are so utterly different, yet somehow we have become very close friends. Such a surprise.
4. A productive and fun day yesterday. We went to the farmers market, went to dog class, then I hung out with my friend at a coffee shop and worked on my stupid reference statistics database (yes, I’m doing this project again at my new place of work. I hate reference statistics) and had some good, meaningful conversation. I went to the food coop, came home and made 4 batches of pesto and the sweetie made us corn and pest BLTs for dinner. Such a great day.
5. The sweetie is now making blueberry streusel muffins!
6. All the great stuff we bought from local farmers yesterday: blueberries, corn, bacon, basil, dill, parsley, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, beans, scallions, onions, garlic, broccoli, etc. Yum.

Today I am grateful for:

• The sleepy dog cuddling on the couch with me
• The sour cherries the neighbors gave us. The sweetie is going to make a pie. They also gave us plants, which I finally planted. These neighbors are simply great, in general.
• A lovely morning at dog class and walking with Duncan and eating breakfast.
• The most perfect weather EVER. I know I keep saying this, but we are having a fantastic summer.
• All of my Friends in the Computer.
• Remembering how much I adore being a librarian. I love my job. It scares the hell out of me, but I love it. When I stop being so scared, I’m really good at it.
• A good day today.

Today I am grateful for:

• A happy, sunny walk with the dog. He did such a good job heeling, even though we really haven’t formally worked on that yet and was really responsive and happy. Had a nice chat with a neighbor.
• Since we adopted this dog, and since I returned from my trip at the end of May, I have walked him at least once a day, every day, for 1-2 miles minimum. It doesn’t sound like much, but I can feel the difference. I no longer get winded at all and I feel myself walking faster.
• Librarian, who is a true blue friend. Thanks for your note today. I’ll try out some of those strategies.
• A somewhat clearer head today, with no panic attacks thus far.
• Blue skies.
• Pride month. Embracing diversity means challenging the very notion of monolithic, homogeneous normality. Happy Pride!

Today I am grateful for:

• My snuggly, cuddly new dog. I love him.
• Upcoming social engagements with friends. Being at home all the time isn’t good for me.
• Fizzy water
• A good trip to Maine, including a superior visit with my parents.
• Cheese

Today I am grateful for:

• A beautiful, cool spring day. Gorgeous.
• Feeling alert and focused.
• CD: Nordic Roots 3
• Bacon and egg sandwiches.
• Two long conversations with two good friends.

Today I am grateful for:

• Nightingale (http://www.nightingalevt.org/index.html), a wonderful acoustic, folk group from Vermont that plays traditional French Canadian and Celtic music. I just love the two CDs we have.
• My faculty contract and my union! I have the very best contract an academic librarian could have. I’m off work (officially) until after July 4. I don’t get paid, of course, and I still have work to do, like prepping for the class I’m teaching in July, but I am so glad to have a chance to catch my breath.
• Speaking of my ridiculously awesome contract, I finally received the new Macbook Pro promised to me by my contract. Yay! Fabulous machine.
• The very real possibility of getting a new dog, perhaps as early as Saturday, if all works out. I can’t wait to meet him!
• Another CD: A Long Way from Normal by pianist Awadagin Pratt. I got this CD for free ages ago and I still love it. Something about the combination of pieces gets me (Liszt, Franck, Brahms, and Bach/Busoni). I never thought I liked Franck before I heard this CD, but Mr. Pratt does such a beautiful job with it. Anyway, a gorgeous album of ruminative, Romantic (as in the artistic genre of classical music) piano music.

Hope this finds you all well. I know I’ve been away for a while, loitering in other online venues. I’m happy to be back here.

Today I am grateful for.

1. My great job, with excellent benefits, in a healthy, admirable institution. My only problem at work is juggling all the tasks and eleventy billion opportunities.
2. My week off from work.
3. Wool sweaters.
4. Glasses.
5. Warmer weather.

Yes, I’ve been away from 43T for a while. Hello.

• 43T friends who check up on me periodically.
• A very decent and remarkably productive day at work.
• My color-coded to do lists, which are strangely helping me tremendously at work as I endeavor to stay on task and complete things.
• Breakfast with KM yesterday.
• My new book group.
• Chocolate cake.
• A fun time at the reference desk tonight. One never knows what folks will ask.
• Extra rest and extra naps are helping me feel better.
• James Tiptree, Jr. kept all of his correspondence; I mean, ALL of it (so far as we know), including outbound letters. He left a tremendous historical record of his life even before he became James Tiptree. In the future, will we have this wealth of information about authors? I doubt it. I mean, who keeps every single email they ever sent?

• A completely unscheduled work day, which has allowed me to slowly plug away at the endless to do list
• Social networking technologies, which enable me to easily stay in touch with my co-workers from my previous job. I’m kind of homesick for them today
• The opportunity to do a very interesting consultation with a nursing graduate student next week. Yay!
• My true blue sweetie, who has taken good care of me over the past couple of days
• I have a good, reasonably secure job that I enjoy and for which I am compensated well. Nothing bad about any of that.
• Online radio stations like Pandora.
• My new work colleagues, who have been very kind to me and seem like fun people.

Today, I am grateful for:

• Flannel
• Coffee
• My newly-repaired prescription sunglasses, which allow me to drive straight into the glaring, rising sun each morning without crashing into a guardrail.
• My mostly healthy elderly border collie. One of our friends recently had to put down his dog, who was ailing terribly, poor thing. He got Vince at the same time we got Zeke. I am very grateful that Zeke is still himself and enjoying life.
• The wonderful training, mentorship and friendship I received at my FPOW.
• That I left my FPOW when I did, immediately preceding another staffing change that would have impacted me quite negatively.
• I have an office with a door (but no window) at my new POW.
• I get to work in a gorgeous new library with stunning views.
• I get to go up to people at work and say, “Hi, I’m the new librarian.”
• My new commute is not bad at all. The bad rush hour traffic always seems to be going in the other direction. (Too bad I can’t take the bus, though.)
• Weekend naps.