#365Gratitude Day 122: And your training begins...

I've written before about my lifelong love of Scrabble, and how my aunt taught me to play when I was very young.  She soundly trounced me for literally thousands of games over the course of about 15 years, before I got skilled enough to beat her.

It's a tradition I've continued, first with my own stepson, T., and now with my newest student, our girl Kate's little boy, Captain-Man.  Katiebug and the good captain were down for a visit this weekend.  

High on the Captain's agenda was us playing Scrabble Junior, which his mom was good enough to get for him.  

There's our first game, in progress.  (I'm the one with the bigger, hairier legs.)

I was pleasant surprised by just how much Cap already knows.  He's very clear on his consonants versus vowels, and he was able to read the words on the board without much help on my part.  Once I showed him the tactical advantage to looking for words he could complete, especially words of his own color (which give two points in Scrabble Junior), he was on the case.

And he won.

OK, I'll admit, I consciously avoided plays where I could have taken points from him.  I didn't outright throw the game, but I was very generous.  (C'mon, he's 5.  What am I, a monster?)

He loved it.  Later in the weekend, we played a four person game with Missy, and his mom.  He came in third that time, and lost gracefully, which also pleased me.  (And just for the record, I came in second, so put a sock in it.  Kate won.  She was great.)

I strongly suspect that our playing this game each visit, and ultimately graduating to the blank board version of it (on the other side of the board) is in our future, and that it won't even be long.  His eyes lit up when we played in a way I recognize.

I am looking forward to his becoming a formidable player.

#365Gratitude Day 121: Punching Out Early

My job is pretty flexible about time.  I don't have an exact time to be there first thing, and I can leave early if I want, as long as I make up the time later in the pay period.  That's an enormous benefit.   

Some days I'm filled with fire, and leave my house at what my brother calls "oh-dark-early" in the morning, so I can dig right in.

Other days I leave early because my brain says, "that's it, Mako, we're done here."  Friday was like that.  I just got sort of brain-full, and needed to come home.

I'm really grateful I get to do stuff like that.

#365Gratitude Day 119: In this together

On Tuesday I had a great day at work, recovering from a glitch I had made/caused myself.  I not only redid my work, but improved upon it, quite a bit.  Things were going swimmingly, right until the end of the day when I went to check in my stuff, and wound up blowing something up.

I wasn't quite sure how to fix it, so I left for the day, hoping to get assistance with the issue the next morning.  When I got in, my coworker had already fixed it altogether, even going so far as to include data I needed as he fixed it.

What a good guy!

So I spent all of yesterday moving even further ahead on my project.  Right up until the end of the day, when I realized I needed more/different requirements to be able to continue at all, and that I was going to need to meet with a different coworker to hash it out.

But that's okay.  Because this work is a team effort.  It's not all about me.  I can, and do lean on my fellow coworkers to get things done.  I trust them.

It feels good.

#365Gratitude Day 118: Mako "Two Plans" Allen

There's a famous Monty Python sketch about a composer, Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.  

It's on my mind this morning after my day of mistakes yesterday.  It's not really related, in the same way as say, having a garden shed isn't related to being a composer. ​

I do have a point here though. ​

It's about having a plan. Yesterday I had a distinct plan for my day and this, the next day, that fell right through, because of some choices I made. ​

Sounds like a bad deal, right? There goes my well-crafted plan! Boo-hoo!​

This morning while re-evaluating my options, I made a new plan. Look, I have two plans! (Actually, from the time I began writing this, I actually threw that plan right out, and made yet another new one. But there's no Three Sheds sketch, so there you go.  You work with what you have.) 

Joking aside, that's right square where my gratitude hit me this morning. I have ownership. I'm responsible for me. 

That means I'm the ultimate maker of my own choices. (Even when those choices mean losing code, getting bad sleep, or maybe getting a good hard smack or three for misbehavior [in my mutually consensual d/s relationship].)

It also means that as plans for my day go, I'm like a veritable plan factory.  If a plan isn't working out I can scrap it and whip up a new one in nothing flat!  Then as soon as I have it, it's time to execute the plan!  (Even if the first step is to scrap the whole thing. Funny, that.)

It makes a sound in my head when I do that, in fact. It almost sounds like a symphony!