Counting your blessings

This past weekend, LML and I celebrated “Geek Thanksgiving”.  This tradition started a couple of years ago with LML and his friends.  Sometimes, some of the people in their circle of friends wouldn’t get to celebrate Thanksgiving with their family, so the amazing friends stepped up.  I get it; it’s why the Geek will inherit the earth!  Typically our friends host the event and we show up with pies and buns and booze.  This year, LML and I offered to host in our home.  Our place is pretty big and built for entertaining.  LML has been doing some amazing things in the kitchen, so we knew he could pull off this meal.  Logistically, if people either drop off, or join in at last minute we can handle it, so it just made sense.

The gifts were at home for part of Saturday, so I put them to work helping clean, then the eldest went to a friends for a sleepover, so it was just the lil’est gift and the geeks.  He was awesome, hung out for dinner, ate without complaining, helped clean up, then took off upstairs to bed early as he was tired, allowing the adults to chat and watch wildly child inappropriate movies … like Deadpool!

The reason I bring this up is it reminds me to count my blessings and remember what I’m grateful for.

1.       LML, he’s truly my soul mate and perfect match.  I always knew love could be like this, and I’m so grateful I found him.

2.       The gifts, they’re amazing.  Sweet kids, who are kind and helpful, funny and slightly crazy, I couldn’t be more proud of these guys

3.       My friends!  Even though my family no longer does Thanksgiving (or isn’t inviting us) and LML’s mother usually travels south for Canadian Thanksgiving, it’s nice to still be able to have the big turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

4.       As much as I complain about the gender discrimination at work, I really do have a good job, they pay me well and recognize my contributions.

5.       I have my health.  I say this as one of my closest friends is under palliative care for terminal breast cancer.  I’m not the picture of health, but my issues are managed and I’ve managed to lose some weight.

6.       I am not American facing a horrific election next week … dude, this one is pretty HUGE!

7.       We’re comfortable, not rich, but not struggling.

8.       We have Honda’s!  Yay Honda!

9.       I really have some of the best friends anyone could have.  From my original band mates from my tween to teen years that are still there, to the GWM’s who are my rock, sanity and often saving grace, to Michael and Michaela, both coming into my life in the strangest ways, and staying because they’re amazing. 

I could do this all day, but I’d like to keep #4 and not lose it for blogging all day.  Our theme this year at work is an attitude of gratitude and I’m very lucky to be grateful for so many blessings.  I hope this helps me continue forward with a continued attitude of gratitude and kindness.

I will never forget

Driving into work this morning, I’m feeling a little sorry for myself.  Work hasn’t been awesome lately.  I opened my paystub last night to see I’d been hit with almost 2 days of personal time off.  I immediately sent an email to the HR manager, asking her to clarify what they were for; even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.  I opted to work from home two days as I was rather sick, and I was nailed with personal time.  Its okay, I’ve got the time to use, but what annoys me is that I asked if it was okay that I work from home and my boss said yes, then turned around and sent a note to HR telling her to use my sick time.  It’s very reminiscent of my rant from a cube experience.   There’s also been a ton of tension in our department due to miscommunication between my coworkers (and some bitching) and while I’ve asked my boss to address it, he hasn’t.

Woe is me …

Then I get to work, sit down and begin my morning routine.  I turn my radio on and they have a 5 minute spot on the tragedy that occurred exactly 14 years ago.  When the world I knew lost its innocence; when thousands of people died in the worst terror attack on North America.  While there were tons of stories of heroism and humanitarianism, there were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, brother and sister that would never come home.  One of my friends posted how the story personally affected her … this part from her story brought me to tears …

My sister's boyfriend at the time was also a suburb firefighter and he lost his cousin. He was down at ground zero a lot. The whole family came up to Boston at the end of September for my sister's bday and Eric washed his truck. There was a patina of baby powder fine grey dust all over it, and I remember, it was a sunny as 9/11 and I watched what was left of the Towers get washed down my driveway.

I wasn’t there, I didn’t lose anyone in the tragedy, but I could imagine standing there, on her driveway watching that myself.   I’d just returned from a trip to Florida 2 days earlier and my family was frantic making sure I was home and safe, I travelled a lot then.  On the 1^st anniversary of 9/11 I flew from California to Toronto.  I remember the pilot telling us how brave we all were standing in the face of terrorism and not backing down.  I didn’t feel brave, I felt scared, and sad, but mostly scared.

It’s one of those big moments in life.  My mother always said she’d never forget where she was when she found out President Kennedy was shot.  I always found that odd, we’re Canadian, not Americans, why would an American leader being shot mean so much to her.  Now I get it.  I remember exactly where I was when I heard about 9/11.  I was at home working and I had the TV on in the bedroom to keep me company (even though I was across the hall in the office).  I was wondering why Oprah wasn’t on and why this action movie was … then it was on every channel … then I watched the second plane it the second tower, and I was getting nothing else done that day.  I spent the day locating colleagues, friends, customers, family, counting my blessings that everyone I knew was safe. 

Now, 14 years later, I will focus on counting my blessings.  Work is that, I can leave it behind when I go home and focus on how happy I am, how lucky I am, how blessed I am.

How do you know … if he really loves you?

That’s right, mysterious (MIA) blogger girl has resurfaced … catch her quick, she’s likely to disappear again for a long stretch of time.  I’ve always used my blog as a way to either A) work through something that’s troubling me or B) entertain myself.  As you can see by my utter lack of blogging, I haven’t been overly troubled as of later … and FB games have been entertaining me well.

I find myself half way between my wedding (Nov 7, 2014) and my reception (June 21, 2015).  The wedding was the easy part.  Call the chapel, book it and they take care of everything, the reception, on the other hand has been a bit more of a challenge.  That being said, it’s all coming together nicely.  My location is AH-MAZE-ING!!!!  Not only is it a GREAT location, it’s by the water and the owners are absolutely spectacular.  The caterer is looking pretty fly and OMG BHE and the boys in their kilts?  To die for!

Everything has been coming up Millhouse lately (man, I really don’t want to jinx it).

Today, I found this on FB, and it’s so utterly true!

I said that to BHE just last night.  We had a lovely evening alone where he picked up our favourite Thai, had a beautiful bottle of wine chilled and even bought me a new coffee mug for work (it says “Good Morning Beautiful”).  *melts* words are that and while I love hearing him tell me that he loves me, it’s amazing to see it and feel it through his actions.  That’s how I know he REALLY loves me, he makes me FEEL loved … every … single … day!.

I know, I’ll always get butterflies with him and that’s just another of the thousands of reasons that I am the luckiest girl ever and the happiest wife in the world!