Friday night grateful moment

The days are getting shorter, it is very clear. When I wake now, it is often to an alarm, not with the light of dawn as is the case in the middle of summer. Sunset is earlier too, and the evenings cool just beautifully. Midday is still quite warm, and word on the street is that there's not a fan available anywhere for purchase, as all the new college students have scooped them up to cool off the dorm rooms.

I am improving, every day, from this weird summer illness. My cough frightened a few people on my first day back to work, last Monday. Everywhere I went, I had glasses of water at the ready, and my Ricola cough drops. I maintained a half-day schedule for most of the week, with an exception for Wednesday where meetings and clients sucked away nine hours lickety-split. Afternoons I laid about and responded to emails and napped and continued to watch The Closer.

As for gratitude, I do have that in spades. For my own health, and for the continuing road to health for loved ones who have been unwell. Health is such a tricky, fickle thing, sadly. Every day I hear stories of diagnoses and prognoses that are less than ideal. One moment ago you thought yourself a healthy person, now you know otherwise. Having the courage to face a serious illness, that's something I'm also grateful I don't have to deal with, right now. I pray for those who do.

I've been grateful for pretty decent sleep this week. We're adjusting to a new world where a mobile Seth (driving) is able to socialize and twice this week came home after husband and I had fallen asleep. Wow how the times, they have changed. (I also napped very easily in the afternoons, as I mentioned above. Glorious, if brief, naps.)

I'm very grateful this week that when General and Chief saw a window of opportunity (the garage door got left up) and took off down the road, my dear SIL saw them and scooped them up and brought them home. They are not road warriors, and there were follow up conversations about the vital vital need to make sure all doors and gates are latched securely! Grateful for safe pups.

I'm grateful for understanding colleagues, for pitchers of water delivered to conference rooms and coworkers trying not to make me laugh! The laughter never fails to bring on the Black Lung cough.

Summer flavors continue. We are in the heart of perfect watermelon season, and between the three of us we can plow through a great deal of watermelon in an evening. Berries are waning, but nectarines remain, and new crop apples and pears are joining in. The kale has been stalwart, showing no sign of stopping; same goes for zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, okra... I am grateful for our garden; every season I learn something about gardening, and appreciate the produce so much.

Skyping with my mom in the middle of the day in the middle of the week has been nice (post-nap). I'm grateful for technology that allows for keeping in touch so easily.

Been reading up a storm, but all work related. I look here on my bedside and see a lot of books I keep meaning to dive into, but just don't have the mental space most evenings. I am grateful for so many options in my information intake, even as I am often daunted by those options. I could read all day every day and still feel like there's more to take in.

School starts on Tuesday, and I think we're ready? Hard to know with a high school junior. He has taken care of all his registration and fees and such on his own, got his parking permit for driving to school, mister independent! It's great, and good to see him back with his band buds, getting ready for marching band season. I'm grateful for his social group, that he has good friends who are good for him too.

And if it's the last weekend in August, it must be fair time. Even though I'm not sure I'm going to venture over to the fairgrounds much, if at all, I love knowing that it's happening, all the produce and baked goods and sewing and quilts and photography, etc., all in their places with judging and ribbons and all. And the bunnies! Maybe I will have to go over there just to see the giant bunnies. So soft and sweet. I'm grateful to live in a small town where the fair means traffic jams and school's out (for the private schools who started earlier this week) and carnival rides and elephant ears. It's a fun tradition.

I feel a little short tonight in my expressions of gratitude, and for that I apologize. Tiredness descends, and Nyquil is on the way. Wishing you oodles of rest and relaxation over this long weekend.

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

Well, here we are again, another Friday, another week passed, and a health update from me!

Lots to be thankful for this week, definitely. Much progress on the health front, after a bit of weekend drama last weekend, with an ER visit, proper diagnosis of pneumonia (earlier doctor visit had pegged the lung thing as bronchitis, and they are definitely two different animals, apparently), and my very first CT scan (initial chest x-rays showed lung "abnormalities," always words you want to hear while wheezing away with a nebulizer!).

The week was filled with a lot of peace and quiet, many naps, lots of fluids and quart or two of cough syrup. Quite a bit of Netflix again, with the addition of Amazon Prime. I got a little into The Closer, which I described to a friend as the perfect mix of interesting, but if I fall asleep in the middle of an episode, it's not a big deal.

So grateful for husband, for his care and tending of me in my sickened state. He's the one who looked at me mid-Saturday and said, "This isn't right, you're getting worse instead of better" and dragged me off to the ER. Darn if he isn't always right. He also went out late at night for a humidifier for me, has kept the stream of Day/Nyquil flowing freely, and even brought my fave gerbera daisies to brighten my bedside--I called them my "flu flowers!" They've lasted splendidly, through the pneumonia too, but pneumonia flowers doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Also very grateful for friends--for the care (tea! cough drops! chocolate!) packages (even figs!), the text messages and check ins, and flowers from my parents. One afternoon I got especially bored and the text messages were fast and furious. I even got a story told to me via text! So blessed am I.

Seth has also been a source of joy and comfort, as always. He came out and mowed the lawn for us this afternoon, on his "off" week--at his dad's--helping out and making sure we don't turn into a jungle!

I've been grateful this week for the ability to check in on work occasionally by email, but mostly have the time and energy to rest, nap and generally chill. I know there are many situations where people don't have the luxury of recovering properly, and have to return to work before they ought to, for a variety of reasons. Space and time to recover is a blessing.

The garden continues to give, at a steady rate. I am in tomato heaven, and when my appetite returned this week (I had zero interest in food during the fevered era), I ate tomatoes and basil every which way. I also indulged in my favorite seasonal stuffed squash blossoms one day--heaven! I have plans for some zucchini and summer squash this weekend--found some newish, different recipes on Pinterest that seem worth giving a whirl.

And of course, I had ample time for Pinterest this week! I haven't spent much time there the past few months, being so busy with work and such. So I can't help but share a few of the images I'm grateful for, things that inspired me and cheered my days.

polar

deep joy

kitty (this one's for Maizy!)

prayers

stained glass

royals (how cute is that?)

awake (this brings me comfort)

I hope you are well, and that the weekend ahead gives you an opportunity to do whatever it is that eludes you during the workaday week--rest, relaxation, back-to-school shopping, celebrating--whatever it is, enjoy it to the fullest!

Peace.

Total cop-out Friday night grateful moment

Remember last week's grateful list? In case you're not in the mood to scroll down, or are in a reader, or or or, here's the link.

Read down a bit about the sickness, blah blah blah, a lovely Buddha quote, some tripe about there always being something to be grateful for, a little sweetness about husband's birthday, the beautiful weather, and then there's the kicker:

I am so grateful I haven't gotten super-sick. (Knock on wood.)

Replace that with:
Even though this was probably one of the longest, sickest, most useless, frustrating and exhausting weeks I've ever had to endure, I'm glad to be eeking back toward some semblance of health. So much for knocking on wood, eh? A seven-day bout with fever, a wicked case of bronchitis, and more mediocre TV/movies than one brain really should be able to hold, and here we are, exactly one week later.

Cop out, and I'll take it. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

Came down with a rather sudden flu-like illness just 24 hours ago, and am still feeling rather achy and blah. Hoping that another 24 hours puts it well behind me! A girl can dream, can't she?

Tonight I am grateful for many things which will probably go unsaid through my blur of not feeling well. Suffice it to say the old Buddha quote came to mind today: “Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.” I know, a little dramatic for having the flu, when I know so many people with much more serious illnesses and even facing their last days. So, take the quote a little lightly, coming from me.

Had the chance to take a day off for husband's birthday earlier this week, and that was grand. Nice to take a mid-week day and play and celebrate him. We'll keep the celebration going once Seth gets back over the weekend, and into next week too! I am very grateful for husband and all the many ways he makes my life sweeter.

I'm also grateful it's not been 100+ degrees lately. Nice to have cool mornings and still a great deal of sunshine--even though there's some promise of storms over the weekend--but to have it in the 80s and 90s is far preferable in terms of getting things done in the yard/garden after work.

I am so grateful I haven't gotten super-sick. (Knock on wood.)

I am grateful for sleep, and for the many little naps I took throughout the day.

I am grateful for Netflix, and being able to watch on my iPad in bed. The modern comforts, that's what it's all about.

Couldn't resist sharing that one. Made me laugh. I don't think about myself "bitching" per se (who does, probably?) but mostly just noting what's not working, what I need to work on, what others around me need to work on (of course!)... the usual.

Every day, without fail, I am struck by the beauty of where I get to live. The view, the light, the hills, the color, it all combines to make each season unique and lovely. I started to get a couple of "oh, fall is coming" pangs this week, but that will happen soon enough. I want to savor each summer day.

I hope you have a weekend to savor, ahead of you. Me, I'll be a' nappin'. Got to get back to 100%!

Peace.

Friday night grateful moment

Saw this list recently and it pretty much captures where I'm at tonight.

I hope that wherever you are tonight, you have a grateful list too.