#365Gratitude Day 86: Mug shot

A while back I got into mug cooking.  That's small recipes you can make in a mug, with a microwave.  I went through a big phase of this about 18 months ago or so, and then promptly forgot about it again.  

Until Friday night.  For some reason, I stumbled across a e-cookbook of them I had and was hooked all over again.  I like taking the recipes and tweaking them, to make them my own.  I'll halve the sugar, to reduce calories, use margarine instead of butter, substitute ingredients to see how they'll turn out.  Because these are tiny recipes, that don't take much in the way of ingredients or time, if an experiment is a dreadful failure, it's not the end of the world.

I found a new recipe I had never made before, Peanut Butter Mug Cake.  It turned out amazingly well.

#365Gratitude Day 85: My catkids

I've had Yin and Yang since they were 10 weeks old.  They turned 10 years old in February.  They've been a source of constancy and joy in my life.  They were just little babies when Missy and I first met.  In fact, the way she loved them, and the way they instantly took to her was one of the ways I knew that I wanted to marry her.

Here's an old picture (from April 2006, of Missy playing with Yang, at my old apartment.)

It boggles my mind that my babies are 10 years old.  They've been around to share in the love Missy and I have for one another.  They're just as loving, adorable, and sweet today as they've ever been.  Over the years, they've fought to figure out who's the alpha cat in the house (clearly the answer is Missy.)  But they are good to each other, and good to us.  I'm grateful for them.

#365Gratitude Day 84: Teaming Multitudes

My new job is at a small company.  I regularly work with a very small team.  Wednesday two of them went with me to lunch.

This was the second week in a row we've done this.  Our first week I took us to a pho place near the office.

This time Coworker B picked a place, and it was damn good.  

The whole experience made me very happy.  I've worked at companies both big and small. I've had jobs where I had some degree of "work friendship", and others where I had none.

I am really liking my job, because I really like the people there.  This is sort of new territory for me.  When I interviewed for the job, part of why I wanted it was because I clicked so well with the interviewer, and then later on, with the higher-ups who called me for the gig.  

I feel like I can do well there, that these people are my people.  It's a good feeling.

#365Gratitude Day 83: This is a recording

One habit I've had for a long while is I like to dictate to myself.  I'll record voice memos into my phone, often as I drive by myself.  I use them to jot down ideas about fiction I'm working on, or story ideas when they come to me.

I often forget that I do this, too.  Then when I go to record something, will stumble upon old recordings I've made, and listen to them.  Sometimes when I do, I'm shocked, amused, or thrilled by these forgotten gems, that connect me to ideas long forgotten, or some way I was feeling that I no longer do.

Just today, I was taking notes for my next novel (working title, A Little Patch of Sunshine), and after I finished, I stumbled across this idea for a horror novel.  

I completely forgot about it - and when I listened to it, was actually terrified by it, and its conclusion.

I have a long list of writing projects ahead of me, so I don't know when, if ever, I'll get to this one. But I'm glad I recorded the idea - because it's a thumping good one.

#365Gratitude Day 82: Moving in with Cargo

So, my friend Cargo and I have moved in together.

Don't get all upset - he's still with his partner, Axiom.  I'm still with Missy.  I'm not talking about our houses in the real world.  I'm talking about the Frank Lloyd Wright style house we're building and staying in together, on our friend Bluwolf's Minecraft Realm, Sorceria.  

I love that Cargo and I are doing this thing together.  We've been really good friends for a long time now.  We're compatible in a lot of ways.  In our day lives, we're both techie propellor heads, and we both have that little-boy-playing sensibility about our age play.  We love stuffed animals and lego blocks, and play dates to color, or watch My Little Pony together, or nerd out. 

When he came to visit a few weeks ago, I got him to play Minecraft with me on my XBOX, and we both loved the shared experience so much, we decided we needed to keep it going long distance.

So I found us a good server to play on together, and we got to it.

In the world of the game, I'm kind of like Cargo's littler, not quite as skilled brother.  His natural aptitude for 3-d worlds, rendering, and architecture has made him something of a minecraft prodigy.  He has learned so much, so fast.  I follow his lead, and build stuff under his general design philosophy.  

We're not often on at the same time, but when we are, it's so joyful.  It's like going over to my friend's house for an afternoon play date.  Sometimes I log on to find new things he's done, and find delightful surprises, like this one: