Tag Archives: appreciation

Thank you!

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The text messages while I was running made me very happy. Thank you everyone. I can't go back through and respond because I don't have time. I feel like I have been either extremely busy or asleep since I stopped running. And my computer won't get on the internet consistently. I have stuff I want to write but I have to finish painting today because the washer/dryer are being delivered between 4:45 and 6:45. Must finish! Then the painting will be done in the garage. That will be a euphoric moment of "holy shit I finished a project".

Thankful

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Steph asks what people are thankful for. So here’s a partial list:

I’m thankful that I have a home. I’m thankful that if I decide I need something I can pretty much universally go out and get it. I’m thankful that I never again will have to worry about where my next meal is coming from barring some major natural disaster. I’m thankful that my children are happy, healthy, and good sleepers. I’m thankful that my husband is tolerant of my many and varied ‘issues’. I’m thankful that I am making new friends who are in the same place in life and who are pretty open minded about the ways in which we differ. I’m thankful that Noah tolerates me getting rid of huge quantities of stuff with regularity. I’m thankful that not only do I have plentiful food I have food that tastes so good. I’m thankful for my lovely MacBook that works and has no irritating quirks. I’m thankful for my Sarah! She delights in many of the same things I delight in and listens to so much babble. I’m thankful that with each passing year this house feels more and more comfortable for me to be in.

I’m thankful for all the people who remember me with love. And on that note, I have a phone call to make.

My life fucking rocks.

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Let me count the reasons to be grateful towards the universe right now:

-Mo is coming to visit me today and she is going to help me do work! The only yardwork I will request of her is helping me get those @#%^#@ white rocks up. Then we will come inside and she will help me give the house the scrub down it has needed for months. She loves me *that* much. <3 -My cousin and her boyfriend are coming over on Tuesday. Her boyfriend is one of the most hard working people I have ever met in my life. He's going to help me get the rest of the yard work stuff done. I am so excited about this I could float off into the universe. I think that, unexpectedly, I am actually going to get my yard to a place where I am happy with it for the first time since I’ve lived here. That is so cool I can barely stand it.
-Taylor is coming over on Thursday and he will give me a massage. I’m going to be a happy pile of goo after that. And he will help me put the gate up in the side yard to keep Shanna out of the compost. 😀
-I am pretty sure I will have ALL of my projects done by Thursday and I can’t express how happy that makes me. I feel constantly unsettled and anxiety around projects not being done. It really affects my day to day happiness in negative ways. But I will get caught up! Dude! SO EXCITED!!!
-We have a babysitter for 10 hours on Saturday and we get to party hop! This will be thrilling.
-Good stuff with my aunt. It’s nice to have someone in my family sit down and listen to me. I needed that so much. My soul feels lighter.
-I have this wonderful, amazing, fabulous husband and hanging out with him is so awesome. 🙂
-Shanna continues to grow more individualistically person-like daily. It is so much fun to spend time with her. I really love watching her charm the pants off everyone she spends time around. 🙂 She is such a poster-child for reproduction that I giggle when avowed ‘not into kids’ people are all over her like white on rice. 😀
-I’m really excited about the upcoming camping/wedding/festivity in May. I think it will be super fun and really great.
-I’ve been getting out and being more energetic and it feels really nice. I’m less slug-like. 🙂 I’m even doing better about doing cooking and eating slightly better. I’m being good to my body and the tiny baby and I’m glad I can do that more now.
-For today I feel like the burdens in my life are all in perfect balance and thus there is the lightness of a feather upon my back. I don’t get here often but I really cherish it when I do. Thank whoever is watching for reprieves from hard. 🙂

ETA: and I totally forgot to mention that Alex volunteered to make a play kitchen for Shanna for her birthday. Maybe I should be less down on my chosen family. They are totally rocking lately. 😀

+/-

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+ Someone should be arriving in about half an hour for a play date
+ Great dinner with friends last night. Shanna was an angel.
+ Lots and lots of productivity this morning. I’m impressed with myself.
+ Feeling energetic and social. It’s nice.

– My laptop screen is dead. It fell off a very high shelf. Not sure if we can replace it ourselves and can’t really afford sending it in for repairs. Fuck.
– Shanna destroys stuff almost as fast as I can clean. It’s hard to find my zen with this.
– Even when I’m very productive there is still more to do and more and more and more and… it gets overwhelming.

Much awesome

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In the past week I worried that I offended two of my longest term friends. I was feeling very nervous about alienating them because they are very important to me. Both have since responded very positively to me and said point blank that our relationship is too important to them to give up over any small disagreement. I’m not sure I can express just how happy that makes me. I feel valuable. I feel loved. I spend so much of my time feeling like if I say the wrong thing people will abandon me. I am grateful beyond words that they both took the initiative to assure me that they aren’t going anywhere.

I love you Britt. And I love you Debbie. Thank you.

It’s a goal

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Between now and Christmas I am going to try and avoid negativity. I am going to refrain from complaining about anything. I am going to try to find something positive in each situation. If I can’t find anything positive to think about a situation I will walk away from it. I will notice the really really good things in my life.

Starting with:
I have less than 30 minutes of work left in the garage before I can move furniture out there. It looks like our dinner plans tonight are not going to materialize so I will use that time to finish the cleaning and start moving furniture. Yay! I’m really excited about this. [For those following at home, the garage is not done but I am not going to finish it for a couple of months to give myself some time to regain sanity.]

Shanna and I have had a wonderful day today. While I was working out in the garage she napped on my back. We went on a long, fun walk today. She would lag behind then declare “Chase Mommy! Fast Shanna!” It was so awesome.

Appreciation

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Today I am feeling very happy with the world and everything in it, so I’ll talk a little bit about what I appreciate today. 🙂

I appreciate that my wonderful Marcie let me have huge blocks of wood for my yard. Soon I will get around to finishing that project and I will have the coolest sandbox ever!

I appreciate that my darling husband tolerates my ongoing projects and obsessions. 😀

I appreciate that my daughter loves books so much. And that she is picking up words at a prodigious rate. It is getting so much easier to communicate with her.

I appreciate that my house is small enough to be easy to clean. The older I get and the more stuff I have to get done in a day the more I appreciate this. 🙂

I appreciate that Taylor offered to come help me finish the garage. It is almost entirely cleaned out! It will be done by Friday! This is so exciting. (At this point there is probably about an hour of moving stuff and an hour or two of cleaning left.)

I appreciate the heck out of the chest freezer. Man that thing makes my life better. I have a whole mess of (organic) beef and chicken. I have a huge stash of raw milk, butter, cream, and cheese. I have a freak-ton of ice cream (I buy it on sale and stock up). And then there are the ’emergency’ tv-dinner lunches for Noah’s lunch when we have nothing else. It’s so awesome. I think I have enough meat to last me the next six months and maybe longer. This pleases me immensely. We will need more ice cream and milk before then. 🙂

I appreciate the wonderful variety of food available to me here in the bay area. I like that my taste buds have been expanded in ways they wouldn’t have if I lived in middle America.

I appreciate the awesome cookbooks available to me that have taught me how to cook some of the amazing food I enjoy so much. And the baking. *swoon* The baking! I’m pretty good at baking, I have discovered. I really enjoy it.

I appreciate being comfortable financially at a time when many people aren’t. It’s a luxury. I have the luxury of staying home with my kids as long as I want to. It’s really nice.

I appreciate my new roof. Holy crap on toast do I appreciate my new roof. And I really love that we are basically off grid for our electricity usage. That makes me feel good about my impact on the planet. I’m wasteful in other places (like travel and eating meat) so I try to do what I can elsewhere.

I appreciate our wonderful car. It is fantastically efficient and well functioning. It is still pretty through absolutely no effort of mine.

I appreciate having the luxury to sit around and think extensively about what is best for my family. My life is non-stressful and non-traumatic. I get to think about family planning in a safe and comfortable environment where many options are possible. That’s amazing.

I appreciate having yards big enough to worry about. 🙂 It means that Shanna has lots of room to play and explore. And I appreciate how much she loves being outside. That bodes well. 🙂

I appreciate Ikea. My house is turning into an Ikea showroom. It’s kind of funny. But man is it useful and cheap! And I think all the stuff we bought there looks perfectly decent. Yay Ikea!

I appreciate that when I have computer problems I always find a friend to help me fix them. 😀 Man living in the valley rocks. 😀

A resolution.

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We just got back the appraisal as we are working on a home refinance. Well. We aren’t underwater but the house is less than Noah paid originally. This means that regardless of other preferences we are staying in Fremont basically permanently because we would have to make money on this sale for a move to make sense. So I need to work on my attitude about living here. My resolution is to stop being negative about where we live.

Things I like about Fremont:
-I have a great food system worked out. I have a milk co-op just a couple blocks away (I sometimes walk with the order if it isn’t too huge).
-I really love our weekly walks to the farmers market/store. It makes me feel more like I am living in a community.
-I like that I am getting to know my neighbors and that there are a lot of kids in my neighborhood.
-I appreciate the good Thai/Chinese/Mexican/Lebanese/pizza all within walking distance that are local independent places.
-Even though Fremont is far from many of my friends, I’m still in the bay with all the benefits that entails.
-I’m close to BART.
-Even though I am not yet a good gardener and my yards still have a ton of work left before they are awesome–I can do that work at my own pace and I have a decent amount of room in which to work.
-This house is a really good size for us at this point. I appreciate how much time it takes to keep the house (not much). I like that we have way way more storage space than we need.
-I have awesome solar panels on the roof and with the recent reroofing our house is cool and comfortable even on very hot days.
-It’s not going to be hard to finish the garage to create a playspace when my kids are a bit bigger.
-Our mortgage is fairly low and about to get lower. This allows me to stay home without any financial pressure while still doing awesome travel.

One of these days I’ll have to figure out a name for the house that I like. 🙂

Benefits

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I think one of the most significant benefits of being married to Noah is just how enthusiastic he is about my looks/body. My friend Marcie took some pictures of Shanna and I recently and I was actually pretty surprised by how big I am. I don’t feel that big, but I guess I am. They are really cute pictures and I don’t think I look bad I just look heavy. No wonder I’m getting asked so often if I’m pregnant. 😀 I expressed to Noah my surprise at how heavy I look and he said, “Mmmmm. Yeah, you are totally hot.”

If I were really concerned about being thin he would be the worst person to be married to. I’m not that fussed though so he’s just awesome.

2008 in review

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I was asked:
What are you most thankful for in 2008? What was the most important lesson that you learned? Who touched you, and made you more than who you were before?

What made 2008 special for you?

I am most thankful for my daughter. It was long, but my labor was not actually that difficult. I had no complications and my daughter is healthy.

Probably the most important lesson I (re)learned is that every choice you make excludes other options. I’m having a very hard time with the knowledge that I may never teach again. I miss it fiercly.

My daughter again. I have the power to affect everything in her life. It’s a big responsibility and I’m trying hard to be worthy.

The company of Noah on this amazing journey. I have an amazing partner and I feel very blessed.

So–how about you?

What are you most thankful for in 2008? What was the most important lesson that you learned? Who touched you, and made you more than who you were before?

What made 2008 special for you?

Memeish

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Say something nice about each of the last five people you’ve “broken up with” – romantic break-ups, friendships, whatever.

See, this is the sort of meme I can really get into. 🙂 I’m including me initiating the break up and times when the other person initiated.

E: went far out of his way for me as a boyfriend and as a friend. Tolerated all the quirks I threw at him with a grin.
T: one of the best people I have ever known. He gave me the love and support I needed to grow past my childhood.
J: always willing to be supportive no matter what was happening. He likes people more than almost anyone else I’ve dated and that was neat to be around.
P: he cooked well. I just wish he had been happier about me eating the results. *sigh*
A: gave me the opportunity to find out about a part of myself I had never experienced before. I appreciate the efforts made to accompany me along such a bumpy road. 🙂

I was tempted to put Noah on here. Chronologically he is one of the last five. I decided that was cheating. 🙂

10 good things

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1. I had a good walk to the park and Shanna had fun in the swing.
2. I have a safe, comfortable life.
3. I have the best husband ever.
4. I have really awesome friends.
5. I had a great sandwich for lunch.
6. The Barenaked Ladies kids album makes me ridiculously happy.
7. I’m glad that being a parent has been so easy so far. It could change, but damn I’m lucky so far.
8. I loved the snuggle fest Noah, Shanna, and I had in bed this morning.
9. I have a house full of awesome books. I so win.
10. That it’s ok for me to be lazy.

Do you know how many of things are cause of Noah? Yeah, almost all of them. I’m a lucky girl.

Birthday reflection

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I didn’t make a cake. I ran out of time. Instead, I went to Mommy and Baby Yoga and helped my back feel better. And I had lunch with a dear old friend and got to see how much he has changed recently. Then I went and bought a jogging stroller via a craigslist ad. It’s in nearly new condition and I paid less than 1/2 the sticker price. Rebecca will be proud of me. I went and gave food to Laura’s cats. Then I came back to the house and got Noah so we could go to dinner with a small-ish group of people. It was lovely.

I got comments from dozens of people. I got text messages and phone calls and emails. I heard from people I haven’t heard from in a long time. (Hey Miss Jenny–remember Grant from Fisher? Holy shit!) I guess putting it out into the universe that I really wanted people to acknowledge my birthday worked. It even extended to people who have no idea about livejournal.

I feel loved and blessed. Thank you all.

Appreciation

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I appreciate that I have a brilliant husband who pays a tremendous amount of attention to me without assigning negative judgment to what he sees. He can help me figure out my motivations because he doesn’t hand me any of his own baggage in the conversation. There are no sly innuendos in the conversations.

He knows me better than anyone in the world ever has or ever will. Yet he doesn’t give me advice until I ask for it because he respects me. Can anything get better than that?

Ok Keri

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Ten things I am grateful for:

1. The BABY swing that was lent to us. Shanna is currently napping in it and I got all the vegetable chopping done way faster than anticipated as a result. 😀

2. Butterscotch scotch ice cream topping. We finished the bottle last night. It is frighteningly good.

3. Five hours of consecutive sleep.

4. Today, and every day, Noah. That he exists. Specifically lately cause he has been making me awesome breakfasts for weeks now. 🙂

5. Improving communications with my family. There is a lot of healing going on there.

6. That I have gotten to spend so much one on one time lately with really awesome people. For all of my fuss, I have some incredible friends.

7. That I am happy and healthy. I understand that these things are not to be taken for granted.

8. Air conditioning.

9. Being on-the-ball enough to menu plan for this whole week in advance and actually get around to cooking everything planned so far. 🙂

10. That my walls are such rockin’ colors. A few people have expressed surprise that I would paint them such deep dark colors but they make me happy every day. I’m so glad I did!

11. *cough* Oh yeah… my daughter. 🙂 Her smiles are making my life better and better.

The kind of thing I sit and think about

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I think that relationships are complicated. When you think about what makes someone “right” for someone else you are looking at a whole elaborate string of interrelated points and it’s hard to figure out what is the clincher or deal breaker. Yeah, Noah is awesome in general and attentive and a good communicator (very unusual) and hot and good at sex and… He’s just a really bitchin package.

But I think I know what the clincher is. See–I have a really clear picture of what I want in my life. Of what the most important non-negotiable thing was in a life partner. I believe with all my heart and soul that Noah will be a good father. He balances me in all the most ideal ways. We’ve already spent a lot of time talking about how we think parenting should look. Yeah, there are going to be surprises and course corrections and there will be things that Don’t Go As Planned–but our overall attitudes and how they work towards dealing with kids is unlikely to drastically change.

I am not the most stable person on the planet. I work really hard at being consistent, but I can only do the best I can do. Noah is incredibly stable and cheerful and good natured. I’m really happy that I can give that to my kids even if I can’t be that. Noah also believes in letting kids do things for themselves and letting them learn how to accomplish things; they can ask for help if they need it, but I think “doing it for them” is a good way to stifle kids learning. My opinion is backed up by a lot of studies. 🙂 There are areas where I am probably inclined to be far more strict than necessary and Noah is good at telling me that I’m being lame and over reacting. (It’s a delicate line let me tell you.) He likes to play and is physically comfortable with touching far more than me which is going to be awesome for our kids. He can make up the best stories. I really suck at making up stories. He’s so willing to try things even if he might suck at them–I spend too much time worrying about looking stupid. Noah will be awesome at reminding me that just because he doesn’t need privacy and it’s ok for me to snoop in his stuff it’s not ok to do that with our kids. 🙂

Noah is everything I wish my father had been and wasn’t. I’m so glad I get to bring kids into the world and have them grow up with him.

Appreciation

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So uhhh I have had a rather rocky few days. I’ve been really emotional and sad and punchy and difficult to deal with. By and large my friends have been really supportive. I’m glad that I mostly have my friends trained to not tell me to look on the bright side and instead they pat me on the head and validate my feelings. I really appreciate that. Noah is the best husband ever. Even though it was pretty obvious near the end that he was getting frazzled and wore out he was really supportive and awesome. He never put down what I was feeling or told me that I should get over it. (Even when maybe I should.) And so in the end when that string of feeling really fussy and unhappy got worked through I don’t feel bad about having gone through it. I’m pregnant and largely at the mercy of hormones. I have friends and a husband who love me and tolerate my moods. My life is really good.

And then I went and got a pretty neat rocker today from . Too bad I left the cushion at her house. 🙂 Guess I’ll have to see if anyone up in the east bay wants to see me sometime this week so I can make the drive multi-purpose. 🙂

Thankful

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I love to watch him sleep. He is so beautiful in repose. I look at the character that remains in his face even as he dreams. I love how broad his shoulders are; how easily he shoulders burdens with them–both his own and those he willingly, even eagerly takes from me. I like that his body is soft and comfortable to curl up against. I love the whimsy that lead him to get a barrel of monkeys tattoo.

I love that he can forgive me anything. I love that he will do anything for his friends, even as that same habit drives me crazy sometimes. I love how completely he gives himself over to lusting after me. I love that he embraces the changes in my body as beautiful in recognition of the life we created together. I love that he tolerates my mood swings and often difficult temper. He gives of himself more freely and openly than any person I have ever known. I love how he loves me with the open eyed glee of a child being given the best toy in the world.

What I am thankful for is that he was willing to humble his pride and ask me for a second chance when I was too afraid to ask him. I am thankful for the gift of him in my life. It is a rare day when a fight is bad enough to cause me worry about whether this will really work out. Even in those moments I am still grateful he asked for the chance.

Small gratitutes

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Support from the girlys. Love my girlys. Phone call from my Julia. Single best thing about moving to Pittsburgh: being only three hours drive from my Julia. Sweetie you are going to get so sick of me. Offer of solution to potential problem from Sarah. You so get my shit. My work buddy didn’t manage to salvage my lesson plans, but he tried really hard and that counts for a lot.

I’m trying to think of more. If I manage I may update.

Edited:
I’m grateful that Noah is not a douchebag. And that we now have pie.