#365Gratitude Day 2: I get over some CRUD

So yesterday, as I said I would, I got started in earnest on my behavior management application, WeMinder.  I scoped out what I thought was a reasonable initial data model, drew up a raw pen-and-paper ER diagram between the tables, and got started creating what are called the Domains, the central objects that make up the heart of the system.

It's not as impressive as it sounds.  All told, it's like four files, and maybe 60 lines of code.  But it's a start.  The development framework I'm using is called Grails.  It's awesome.  I love it.  

I also hate it a little bit.  It can be very persnickety about certain things.  I found out that you really can't name domains "Action" for some reason.  I also was having a little trouble with the project scaffolding.  

Scaffolding is this awesome rapid-prototyping feature of Grails - you toss this one line into the controller for your domain, and WHAM BANG YOW OTHER SOUND EFFECT - a fully functioning basic user interface comes out the other side.

It looks kind of like this:

Awesome, right?  It's nowhere near perfect, and I'm going to customize the living heck out of it, until it looks very pretty and does a lot more stuff.  But you gotta start somewhere.

Scaffolding like this is designed for CRUD.  (No, not that it looks like crud, although granted, it kinda does.)  CRUD is an acronym for the 4 basic database operations you can do. Create, Read, Update, Delete.  It's good for administrative stuff, and for when you're just getting started building an application.

But, this crud has to actually WORK first.  And yesterday, it didn't.  I could add potential actions, like snuggling, or getting a spanking, but they just wouldn't list properly.  What's more, I couldn't make any entries, because they're relationally tied to the actions.  Unacceptable!

I banged it at for several hours trying to figure out what it was.  It turned out I had one line of code in there I just didn't need.  This one.

After a bunch of tech book surfing and googling, I had an epiphany early this morning at my mistake, and I fixed it.

I'm super grateful that I can get myself over my own crud.

Cat naps

365 Miles: 2 miles

Ok, so I changed my mind. Decided to start with swimming. 

60 minutes worth.  

Felt good! 

#365Gratitude Day 1: Going somewhere

The thing about any long journey is, you've got to start somewhere to get anywhere.

Where's that anywhere?  I'll tell you.

#365Gratitude Day 365: No victory lap

This is it.  The last of my 365 entries of gratitude (more or less, some accounting errors notwithstanding.)

What have I learned after a year of mindfully paying attention to my gratitude?  A lot of things.

• I've learned that more often than not, my wife Missy is at the heart of many of the things I'm grateful for.
• I've learned that when I let myself, I can easily get in my own way, and cause myself a lot of suffering.
• I've learned that just as easily, when I let myself, I can easily get out of my own way, and bring myself peace.
• I've learned that gratitude isn't built, achieved, celebrated, envied, or grown.  It's just experienced.
• And based on that last point, I've learned that I'm just getting started with it.  And always will be.

How does that work, exactly?  How can you always be just getting started?  I think, in part, it's because the work of mindful gratitude is a sort of self-supporting mechanism, it's self-referential. The work is done by me, to me, about me, for me.  I'm the source material for the process, the reference guide for how to do it, and the end product, while also being the consumer of it.  

There's a mathematical analogue for this sort of snake-eating-itself mindset.  It's called self-similarity, and is often seen in fractals.

I find them hauntingly beautiful.  They repeat their patterns, infinitely.  What is at first a small, inconsequential part of the pattern becomes larger, getting significant for a time, until the next small part is focused upon.

Very familiar.

That's why today, I don't get a victory lap.  Because there's no end in sight.

I'm grateful for that.  I was grateful for it 364 times previously.  It looks like I'll be grateful for it for a countless number of days to come.