#365Gratitude Day 202: Missy's passions

I'm a passionate person, and love witnessing passion in others, especially my wife, Missy.

Missy loves a lot of things, but there are some she's especially passionate about.

Two in particular are in this great picture she took this morning.  

She LOVES anything to do with weather, storms, and clouds.  She's had a dream for a long time of going on a storm-chasing vacation. One day I'm going to take her on one, no doubt.

The other passion is photography itself. She's a GREAT photographer. Every year when the cherry blossoms come in she gets up MANY days before sunrise so she can get to the tidal basin in DC, to photograph the cherry blossoms before and as the sun comes up.  

My wife is MANY things, but a morning person is NOT one of them.  

Just goes to show you how passionate she is.  

I love that about her. We're both passionate people, and each have our own individual obsessions, but it's part of the reason, I think, that we get each other.  

Every time she pursues a passion with vigor, I light up inside. I'm grateful she's driven that way. 

#365Gratitude Day 201: Dealing with Cat Hairballs (really)

I love my cats, Yin & Yang.  I've had them almost a decade.  They're a huge part of my life.  They're really brother and sister - they were the last two cats in their litter.

There are plenty of wonderful and equally terrible things about them.  One of those not-so-great-things about Yin is that she's prone to hairballs.  On a fairly regular basis I find them around the house.  

They just come with the territory.  I don't really mind them though.

I remember back when I first got them, and was living in a high-rise apartment, and was cleaning their litter box and accidentally spilled it ALL OVER A CARPETED FLOOR.  It was horrible.

But I vacuumed it up, and bought this POWERFUL carpet cleaning goop, and got through it.

When you love someone, you deal with their disgusting stuff.  In a way, that's part of the joy of a holistic love for another living being.  

So why is it my gratitude today?  Because often, you come up with life hacks and workarounds which make gross things a lot less gross.

I found one for Yin's hairballs this morning.  Salt!

Seriously!  Here's the link to the article about it.

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Cat-Hairball-Stains-from-Carpet

I'm so grateful I found it.

#365Gratitude Day 200: My wife is my best friend

Missy and I, while we are both very different, are also much the same. 

We love many of the same things, and sharing in moments of quiet domestic bliss.   

We went on a spontaneous movie date last night, just because. Then today, went out on errands. When I mentioned I needed hangers, she was super excited to take me to a cool dollar store near our new place, to get some.  

As we went about our day today together, every so often I would catch her making this tiny, happy smile.  

When I asked her about it, she just said she loved me.  

I feel the exact same way about her. Just living our lives together is blissful for me. 

She's my best friend, and I'm grateful for that.  

A Poll: Where are you reading me from?

I'm curious where/how you look for my blog posts.

So, I made a little poll about it.

Thanks!

#365 Gratitude Day 199: The Spoon Thing

Christine Miserandino has lupus.  You can't tell when someone has lupus by looking at them.  It's what many call an "invisible ailment."  She's also a genius.  She came up with a way to convey her limited budget of time, energy, and health to others.  It's called The Spoon Theory.

Do yourself a favor and go read it.  It's brilliant.

I'm incredibly grateful that I'm a healthy person.  Even healthy people do have a limited amount of spoons.  (Of course, I'm not an unsympathetic jerk, I recognize that compared to someone with lupus, who maybe has a drawer full of spoons, I've got like an entire IKEA warehouse of them.)

But still, spoons aren't infinite.

I'm super grateful I learned about this theory.  Because I used to think I had infinite stores of spoons.  I'm a people-pleaser.  I often have a hard time saying no to people.  I wind up paying for it later.  It's a bitter pill to swallow, but in my 40's I don't have the energy resources I had in my 20's.  I need decent sleep, and I've never been a good multi-tasker.  I like to focus on one thing at a time, and give it my all.

Every so often, I load my plate with way more stuff than I can possibly handle and have it all come crashing down around me.  I'll get a poor night's sleep, lose my motivation to do much of anything, and wind up feeling like 8 pounds of overcooked spaghetti being stored in a 4 pound bag.

Today is actually one of those days.  I was up late last night, have visitors coming to see me tomorrow, forgot to wear my CPAP to bed, and woke up this morning rocking what, if I'm not careful, will turn into a skull-busting migraine.  

Now, before I knew about the spoon theory, I would have tortured myself mercilessly at the mistakes I had made previously.  I should have gone straight to bed after coaching last night, should have carefully put on the CPAP, etc.  I could have been unpacking my home office in bits and pieces all this past week, etc.  

But I realize, I only have just so many spoons to manage everything in my life that I do, both for myself and others.  So I took a sick day today, so I can baby myself a bit (not like that), keep myself from getting a migraine, and gently, slowly, get done the things which are weighing me down.  I'm grateful for the spoons I have, and my awareness of their limited number, especially given how much more plentiful compared to the spoon inventory of others.