Laura

I have been moaning about 2016 for a while, but honestly? Most of my objection is that it piled a good chunk of things on top of each other in the latter part of the year, especially the holiday season. This is not to say there weren't sad and even terrible things this year, because I can't type that with a straight face.

But 2016 did have some good times too, and I'm glad for those. I'm glad for the snow gamely trying to cling to the lavender and the cars out front. I'm grateful for Scott's recovery which is going well. I'm glad Andrew is enjoying school and Cub Scouts. I'm glad Ian got to move to a great new preschool with more outdoors time/space, which he is loving. I'm glad I made a little time for photography. I'm glad for some new recipes we've found that we enjoy. I'm glad for the good friends who were with us physically or virtually (or both) this year. I'm glad for sharing, and smiles, and pears. I'm glad for tea, and kindness wherever and whenever it manages to creep in.

I'm glad for improving my accountability and tracking of various things, including budgets and to-do lists.

I'm also glad for sleep. I hope 2017 will manage to be a good year - I'm a bit worried about it, but I can't do much of use about those worries at this very minute, so right now I will just hope - but however much I hope that, I still let it ring itself in last night. I watched the ball drop for midnight on the east coast, and then I finished chores and went to bed.

Things that didn't used to matter when I worked my four-day week-of-doom (because I had Fridays off), but do matter now:

• The vet my cats go to, here in town, to has full Saturday hours. Which reminds me, I need to schedule appointments for the critters. They will not appreciate it.
• The dentist we see is here in town. And has occasional Saturdays, but I'm not sure how much I need to depend on that.
• Our doctors are 15 minutes away, but no freeway/rush hour traffic need be involved unless the weather is bad. We have EXCELLENT doctors, so I am not likely to change this.
• The eye doctor we see, who is perfectly fine, is 10.5 miles away but it all involves roads that can get ugly at rush hour. They are open only weekdays, except "some Saturdays" (call and ask) and the latest they are open is 6 pm on Monday - the rest of the week it is earlier. Meanwhile, there is what seems to be a perfectly good eye place here in town, which is open until 7:30 on Tuesdays and has regular Saturday hours. ...I need to change eye doctors for us, yes I do.
• The affordable/easy store probably isn't, unless I ask Scott to go. They used to be right on my way home; they are now an 11 mile drive away. But they aren't too far from Scott's office, so when he's in the office I may ask him to stop on the way home. Some days. (Scott doesn't like grocery shopping, so this is an imposition, though.)
• The Washington County library system has been my preferred library, both because picking up holds was easier (three days a week I drove past my "home" library in that system, Tigard, when they were open - they're not open Thursdays - whereas Friday was the only day I could go to Wilsonville's library without sorting out kiddos), and because they have a slightly better book selection system-wide, in my experience. Now, Wilsonville and Clackamas County is, because the Tigard library is holy whoa out of my way.

...yeah. Reorganizing my life around being extremely local, and having five days a week of job. On the whole I like it, it just needs some adjustments to fully make it work. The library adjustment I knew was coming; I didn't know about the local eye care place and how good it was relative to my schedule until I started hunting during a recent eye health crisis (when I luckily turned out not to need it, and may I never have a stye/infection on the inside of my lid again, because ugh). I didn't know the vet had Saturday hours because I never _needed_ to know, but it was right there waiting for me on their web site when I looked.

And hey, I get a Thursday farmer's market that I can actually get to. Which is nice, because suddenly driving to the Tigard farmer's market or Lake Oswego's looks like an even bigger pain. (Although LO is a good weekend option, but on Saturday, it's pretty close after the Thursday market. Tigard is on Sunday. Both of those are really good markets, IMO, but ... they require more driving!)

This week, I made two trips that I expect to be atypical - I drove up to Tigard to Home Depot and the Farmer's Market on Sunday, and I drove to downtown Portland for a company event on ... I think it was Wednesday? Maybe it was Tuesday. Some day. And I only walked to work one day this week, Friday.

Even with that, my mileage for the week is under half my former _commute_ mileage (not including side trips or Friday errands). This is really sweet. Of course, this week Drew starts summer camp, which is further away. My route to pick up Drew-then-Ian-then-home is just under 15 miles per day, though - so 75 miles a week for that. Add another 5 miles once a week for the farmer's market. Add 2 or 4 miles per day I drive to work (depending on whether I come home for lunch). 100 miles is sort of the worst-case for all of this, before any attempt to add in errands such as grocery shopping. My former commute mileage, for 4 days a week only, was 200 miles a week. And during the school year, the whole loop from home to Drew to Ian to home is 5.5 miles (instead of 15 miles), and in fact next summer the same will obtain.

(We are switching child care for Drew next school year and summer from the YMCA to Club K, so he can stay in the school and go to after-school activities and such. Drew loves the YMCA, and so do we, but he's willing to try it because he also hears good things about Club K. And one of their summer camp locations IS Drew's school, so that will simplify a lot. Also, his school is close to the farmer's market, so the full round trip hit for the farmer's market won't happen in that case. This switch was already planned for the after-school activities, before I changed jobs, so.)

Reorganizing my life to be incredibly local and allow for my schedule turns out to be, on balance, fairly easy. And really rewarding.

Stress, stress, more stress, and a truly VILE cold (possibly now a truly vile sinus infection, and my doctor could not fit me in, and getting to urgent care is not really doable while on call AUGH).

However. I can let it define the week or I can argue. I've been missing a lot of gratitudes lately (over on Twitter/Facebook, and I haven't copied any here in forever I know), because of stress, and I think that is NOT helping me deal with the stress.

So. I am grateful for:

( The cut tag, which lets me not spam people's reading pages! )

And how is it that I haven't done this since July 16??

( July )

( August )

( September )

( October )

( November )

( December )

Things I have noted: I am not surprised by how often family, immediate and extended, appears in my gratitudes. I'm especially not surprised at how often my joy at my boys' growing up appears. I am a little surprised at how often food appears. I am surprised - and shouldn't be - at how often references to warmth, and relatedly to tea, appear.

I need to remember that making my home and days warm and cozy, when I can easily do so, will yield a resultant joy. So obvious, and so easily skipped, overlooked, or deferred.

Um. I may have let these go too long. On the other hand, seeing a two-month span, I'm struck by two things:

1. More days with more than one gratitude posted/sent. This is becoming a habit of thinking - yay!

2. Ian has progressed from an itty bitty baby who needed support to sit, to sitting unassisted, to pushing himself to sitting. From struggling to commando-crawl (and failing) to crawling, to (just this weekend) pulling himself to *standing*. From eating no table food to eating a wide variety of foods.

( May 21-31 )

( June )

( July 1-16 )

Thank goodness for doing this; reading back over these reminds me of many, many little good things that can otherwise be forgotten. And as I write them it helps me really look at, and find the positives in, my days.

So, here's February and March. (Well, except the first couple days of February were on the last one.)

( That's a lot of lines.... )

I've had a couple people comment on the fact that I'm finding these things to be grateful for. But that's the point of the exercise. With rare exceptions, my gratitude posts are for either things that started that day, or happened the previous day - hence posting in the morning. I try to never delay because I "don't know what to say" but find something to be grateful for. (I do sometimes delay because the baby's diaper needs changing, and I can't do that and type into Twitter at the same time. I also delayed on my birthday because I wanted something birthday-related. In retrospect, I probably should have just been grateful for my birthday the following day.)

I do this because it helps me to take notice of the good things in my life, even if they don't make it into a gratitude post/tweet. They may fade before I have a chance to write them down, but they hopefully do not fade unnoticed. Looking for things to be grateful for helps me keep in mind how blessed I am. This is important when I desperately need a nap and Ian has not slept for more than 45 minutes consecutively in the last five hours - and that only if he's cuddled in my arms - and and and and. I am reminded to take a deep breath, and note that Ian is here, he's healthy if fussy, he loves and trusts me. I have a husband who helps support me, a warm house and plenty of food - my biggest problem at that moment is that my baby is a baby...and actually usually a fairly calm and easily-soothed one at that.

Today, I did something else - I posted a second gratitude entry later in the day: "I am also grateful for the crisp lines of tree branches against the soft grey of the cloudy winter sky."

I was in the parking lot of the store, running errands with Ian along (he slept through most of the errands!), about to go in. And I looked up and the bare branches against the cloudy sky were just *glorious*. I took a photo, but the power lines and cars and all make it unlikely that it will convey the beauty of them - our eyes and minds and hearts are far better at tuning out the irrelevant/unwanted elements than is the camera, alas. And it was the sort of moment I love, when the world is so crisp and precise and purely beautiful. And I was deeply grateful for it and I made note of it to use tomorrow...and then wasn't sure I'd remember by then. Because it was such a glorious moment, yes, but not unique - and what a blessing that such moments aren't unique in my life! - and I wasn't sure it would come to mind as I was tapping out on the phone's keyboard tomorrow morning, "I am grateful for...."

Some things, you don't want to let go that easily. I wanted that one preserved, and so I preserved it. There will be other things to use tomorrow, and now there is a moment that is not lost. Maybe it would not have been either way; but it definitely isn't.

And when I am noticing and capturing moments like that...I think perhaps the attention to my life - that I intended to create by writing out what I am grateful for - is, in fact, being created.

I'm grateful for that, too.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it, and I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thursday.

Things I'm thankful for at this moment:

• Ian, who is waiting his time to arrive but is happily anticipated.
• Drew, who is presently "bowling" in our living room (which involves a small toy ball, 3-5 empty plastic bottles, and the living room table). Extra points for the fact that he pulled a well-sealed sippy out and set it aside, saying, "It has water in it." Yes it does, and thank you.
• A warm, comfortable home.
• The internet.
• All of you. Yes, you.
• A leisurely day, in which I can laze about.
• Good food. I admit that rotisserie chicken from the grocery is not the same as turkey, but it is close enough that we'll have a decent Thanksgiving-like dinner. Minus the pie, because there weren't any sugar-free, and if I bought pie I would eat it. Heh.
• My life has all sorts of minor little irritations, discomforts, and need for extra rest right now. I am so very thankful that those are all it contains, and that almost all of them (other than the cat kneading his claws in the back of my knee this morning, ow!) are attributable to pregnancy and most should get better after Ian arrives (not so much the 'extra rest' but it will at least be slightly different).

It feels weird to be thankful for the annoyances, but when I look at what others are dealing with? I'm incredibly grateful that the annoyances are all I have - and that I have the energy and focus to care about such relatively minor things.

I am thankful most days, really - but many I don't articulate it to myself, and certainly never write it up. So I'm kind of glad to have a day with a name that reminds me to consider these things.

I am wistful for not seeing Aunt Julia & Uncle John and their family and guests this year for Thanksgiving. But I don't think driving an hour+ from home today would be all that wise a choice, nor would it have been any wiser if Ian were here and just a few days old. I've been going through my pictures from last year's Thanksgiving, and I think I may open a can of olives for a snack plate later, too, after being reminded of this one where someone (ahem, maybe even me) had introduced Drew to the concept that olives can be placed on fingers and eaten off them:

So, as I'm driving home Friday from my allergist appointment, I hear on the radio that there's a Sunday farmer's market in Villebois this year.

Villebois village is an upscale conscious-community development on the far side of Wilsonville from where we are. It is, in other words, in town. We've never had a farmer's market in town before. This one is new this year and new this month, but I wanted to check it out.

This weekend was also the Wilsonville Arts festival. That didn't have produce or plant vendors, but it did have food and craft vendors, so I expected the farmer's market to be a little stripped on that front (luckily NOT my main interest in a farmer's market).

It was, for late May, a sweet little market that seemed well-established and had a good variety of produce, as well as ready-made food for sale and a few crafts booths. A very good balance. And the market rules require the produce to be grown locally, the foods made locally with real ingredients. Double win.

I think it's gonna do well, given that it was fine the weekend of the arts festival. I hope it does well. It's nearby - it's so close that we went today even though I was on call, because a) I have an aircard to respond with and b) if there was any problem with the air card, home was less than five minutes away. WIN.

I can't make as many snarky comments about Villebois now though. Rats. Their commercials invite snarky comments. What they're trying to do - create an old-fashioned community where people know their neighbors - is a lovely thing. The radio spots with the accent I assume is fake, but may be real, talking about ze Villebois Village...are really freaking annoying. They're hard to understand, the tone of voice is treacly and smug, and the accent is laid on with a trowel - thicker than the makeup on an 80's pop star. (Hence my assumption that it's fake, when in fact it COULD just be overdone, as I have no real applicable knowledge. But, seriously, laid on with a trowel.)

But if the commercials are annoying, the farmer's market is lovely, and the neighborhood looks like they might be doing some of what they set out to do. (And using architectural styles that match the accent in their commercials, and look...overdone...to my eyes. However, I don't have to like them, as I'm not living in them.) And if they pull that off, it will turn into a place I want to hang out more. I'd have wanted to hang out more today if I hadn't been on call and we hadn't wanted to go to the arts festival; the folks at the farmer's market were nice to chat with.

We have a farmer's market. And I have fresh strawberries. Win.

Last year, dormouse_in_tea turned me on to Possets' Silver Carnations scent which, yes, is almost exactly the scent I fell in love with (in solid-perfume form, from a different vendor) at a craft fair at age 12 or so, and loved until I either used it up or lost it, and have wanted more of ever since. It's floral but spicy in a way most "carnation" things aren't, and it's utterly lovely and it smells, to me, like me. (Seriously: this is enough me that it was the end of my interest in Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab because, as cool as their stuff is, playing around with it became less than interesting once I'd found my scent again. Or had it found for me, more accurately.)

The latest newsletter from Possets tells me that Villainess - a maker of bath products who sometimes teams with Possets to produce them in their scents - will now have Silver Carnation sugar scrub & body creme. Now if only they were doing a soap! (But they never seem to do soap for Possets scents. Sulk.) I'd like a bath bomb in that scent, too. And shampoo, and...er. Yes. I'm fond of that scent. (At least I can buy a base for shampoo and add the scent, if I really want to. I suppose I could make my own bath bomb too, but it's easier to just drip the perfume in the bath water in that case.)

I don't really use it as obsessively as this post implies. But man, for days when I want total indulgence, it would be wonderful.