107 days of gratitude

*Edited to add the remaining 40 things I'm grateful for...does it matter that it is now day 118 or so?*

I strongly believe in being positive and focusing on the blessings rather than dwelling on stuff that goes wrong. Although part of the purpose of this blog is to let me ramble to someone about whatever's on my mind, I want to make sure that I'm modeling what I believe in. And I believe in being a person of gratitude. So, there are 107 days of school left this semester. So, I'm starting this thread to be one where I can take time, every day, to be grateful. At the end of 107 days, I will have 107 things I'm grateful for. And hopefully that will be something to help me focus on the good. Like we're called to do (whatever is good, pleasant...). So, here it is!

1. I'm extremely grateful for a happy, healthy son!
2. I'm so grateful that I got to see the beautiful birds on Lake Ray Hubbard this morning on the way to work. Not sure what they were, looked like Pelicans, but not sure if they are around here...there were 20 or 30 of them.
3. I'm happily grateful my husband and I enjoy playing rockband together...it's a husband and wife having fun as a couple...and now as a family with Logan on the new guitar too. So much fun.
4. I'm grateful for wonderful friends and family that joined us on Superbowl Sunday...the house was full of kids running in every direction and the adults had fun too...at least I did!
5. I'm extremely grateful I made time to lay down and cuddle with Logan when he went to sleep. I went to sleep before he did, but thankfully woke up in time to still get some homework done before actually going to bed
6. I'm thankful I have a boss who really supports me. Everything else can be falling down around me and she's always there to help me find my mind again.
7. I'm grateful I have a job where I can leave work early and spend time with my son at soccer tots...so much fun!
8. I'm grateful that the Lord provides me with energy when I don't have any of my own...I'm grateful for the sustenance he provides.
9. I'm grateful that I am trusted with much!
10. I'm very grateful my sister moved here so we can all spend time together and the kids can play a lot together.
11. I'm grateful for our church, class, and small group!
12. I'm very thankful I don't have to worry about sick time.
13. I'm thankful I have a wonderful husband who knows when I need help and stays home to take care of me.
14. I'm grateful for rest, even when it comes in the form of the flu.
15. I'm very thankful I have friends who forgive me when I miss our lunch date and don't even call.
16. I'm thankful I'm feeling better and was able to enjoy our first parents night out!!! (The plus side of having the flu ahead of time is that you aren't very hungry when you go out and don't over eat TOO bad!!!)
17. I'm grateful for the movie Fireproof and my husband's willingness to spend our time alone on V-day in tears as we watched it.
18. I'm extremely grateful for my nephews and the joy they bring us, and the friendship my son has with them.
19. I'm happy and grateful for a daycare that takes such great care of my son while I'm working.
20. I'm grateful I finally get the opportunity to catch up on #'s 20-60 :)
21. I'm extremely grateful I get to take time off occasionally to play with my son.
22. I'm very grateful for the wii fit...it's been a blast recently.
23. I'm grateful for traditions...even simple ones like watching America's Most Wanted alone on Saturday nights.
24. I'm thankful my husband and have similar beliefs on most of the important things.
25. I'm grateful Christ is patient with me when I'm not patient with others.
26. I'm very thankful for rest.
27. I'm thankful for my work...no really, I am.
28. I'm thankful for my family, all of them.
29. I appreciate that my husband tries to take care of me and is concerned about my well-being on a regular basis.
30. I'm thankful we're paying off debt fairly rapidly.
31. I'm grateful that I have the physical ability to work in the garden.
32. I'm very thankful to have people in my life to coach me in becoming a better person.
33. I'm thankful my son is more/less potty trained!
34. I'm very grateful the shock collar worked to stop the barking...in two days!!!
35. I'm thankful my husband has come home every night from work.
36. I'm grateful we didn't get trampled on by the elephants at the circus today.
37. I'm grateful for coupons...they give me that crazy thrill that only a budget-nerd, thrifty woman could appreciate :)
38. I'm thankful for the rose bush that blooms well each spring...even for the one that never seems to grow well.
39. I'm thankful for a doctor who allows me to make my own choices in fertility care. Aggressive or not, its up to us...no pressure but options are there.
40. I'm grateful that God knows what our family will look like in a month, a year, a decade, and a century and that I don't have to worry about it.
41. I appreciate my son's humor and the time I get to spend with him to enjoy it.
42. I'm thankful my new dryer is FINALLY coming this week! It only took 4 months...almost to the day.
43. I'm thankful for our weekly Costco trip. It's another tradition I highly value.
44. I'm grateful for our family's safety after the events of last week and over the last year. Lord continue to protect as all.
45. I'm thankful my son has been doing much better going to sleep at night!
46. I'm very thankful my son went to sleep without a peep tonight!
47. I'm thankful my husband likes to go to church as a family.
48. I'm grateful I had the opportunity to take care of several adorable babies in the nursery today.
49. I'm grateful for the wipes that took the hair dye off my fingers.
50. I'm thankful for the talents I've been given, especially the ones that allow me to be creative in so many ways.
51. I'm grateful for warm weather again!
52. I'm grateful my husband is home unexpectedly on a Sunday night!
53. I'm thankful for the Dallas weather that helps us to not get bored with it.
54. I'm grateful my husband and I can laugh together and be silly together without worrying about what each otehr will think.
55. I'm thankful for the guidance of my professors, both in my career and education.
56. I'm thankful my son loves to play with his cousins and they enjoy having him over and getting us a break every once in a while.
57. I'm thankful for the new recycling bins.
58. I'm grateful for my husband's love for our son.
59. I'm very thankful for our "family cheer".
60. I'm thankful for weekends where I do no work or homework.
61. I'm grateful for life.
62. I'm thankful for TMZ and the laughs it gives me when I'm up late at night.
63. I'm thankful my son can help take care of me when I'm sick. It's sweet.
64. I'm thankful for living in the DFW area.
65. I'm thankful for coupons!
66. I'm grateful for my husband who is wonderfully supportive.
67. I'm thankful my husband and I are still married!
68. I'm thankful for the silly things my son says...like..."Mom...stop lying to me with your eyes!"
69. I'm grateful I was able to finish prepping the garden (with help!).
70. I'm grateful for the new fence...it looks good AND I don't have to go searching for the dog each night.
71. I'm thankful for our mattress which is really comfortable and has other unmentionable benefits.
72. I'm grateful for my son's joy when seeing the plants grow.
73. I'm grateful the plants have started to grow! WOOHOO...
74. I'm grateful that the plants are still growing after the dogs trample them everyday and one has picked a blueberry push as his personal toilet. Grr
75. I'm grateful for my friends.
76. I'm thankful that I'm free!
77. I'm thankful for the simple joys in life.
78. I'm grateful for what my company provides to help me pay for healthcare.
79. I'm thankful my husband allows me to have bad days.
80. I'm thankful for my new dryer!
81. I'm grateful for my negotiating skills.
82. I'm thankful for the days my son goes to bed "easy"
83. I'm thankful for Saturday mornings when I can sleep in
84. I'm grateful my son is growing up healthy
85. I'm thankful my husband has come home safe every night so far.
86. I'm grateful for my new stand mixer.
87. I'm thankful for Pajama Sam. So much fun.
88. I'm thankful for time tonight to pay bills.
89. I'm grateful that we have been blessed with resources to help pay off some bills and have that snowball rolling.
90. I'm grateful for peace
91. I'm thankful for my parents
92. I'm grateful for my car
93. I'm very grateful for a loving home
94. I'm grateful I love to cook and bake
95. I'm grateful for our son, even more so than ever.
96. I'm thankful for air conditioning, even though I like the heat.
97. I'm grateful it is pool season again!
98. I'm thankful my son loves the water as much as I do.
99. I'm grateful for the way God makes us take a break, even though i don't necesarily like it at the time.
100. I'm thankful school comes easy to me.
101. I'm thankful for Sam Moon's.
102. I'm thankful for rest and relaxation, at least the dream of it.
103. I'm grateful for Costco and our weekly routine!
104. I'm grateful for my husband's ability to make me laugh
105. I'm thankful for the perks I get at work, like sneak preview tickets to popular movies
106. I'm grateful for my opportunity to work with a variety of people from a variety of different countries.
107. I'm grateful I was able to finish this semester!!!

And a big thanks to all of you who continue to look at my blog despite spending 107 days+ to be thankful without many other updates.

Ha! That was funny...just what I needed.

To make matters even better...when I finally did pay my tuition I guess I typed the account number in wrong so it was initially accepted (so that I didn't know I typed it in wrong immediately) but then later "returned". And since it was an electronic check (actually two...I made two payments...one for the tuition and one for the remaining $500 left over from the yanked scholarship), I have now become a fraudulent check writer.

Thankfully they aren't pressing charges (it was over $2000, which would qualify to be a state jail felony for 180 days-2 years in jail and up to a $10,000 fine! Fun Fun!).

The only way to cure it, however, as the oh so rude undergrad assistant told me (sometimes you just want to reach through the phone and strangle someone...then I'm sure I wouldn't avoid the felony) is to make a trip up to Denton by the 6th with "guaranteed funds" and talk to the dean (again) to reinstate my classes (and good name). I was done with the girl on the phone who was wonderful enough to ensure me that even when I talked to her supervisor I'd hear the same thing. Peachy.

I did talk to her supervisor, who assured me that it was policy to force me to come up to campus. Which is when I lost it. I burst into tears and explained to her that I just couldn't take it anymore. I already had to head up to campus last week, which is hard enough for an extremely overworked narcoleptic because of a mistake that was largely due to their error.

As I've said before I'm not one to use tears to get my way, but there's only so much emotion one can handle. Seriously. Really though. I just couldn't handle anymore. Eventually she calmed me down enough to stop my sobbing long enough to tell me that she was going to get "the person who could make that decision" to call me when he/she was done with a meeting. (I guess it was good that it was an ice day or I would have done all of this in my oh so private cube).

A little while later she called me back to say I was once again eligble to pay online.

It shouldn't be this hard.

Hanging on

I'm still here everyone.



Let me start out by saying that the reason I haven't been here was MOSTLY because I spent a great deal of time resting and playing with my son and family over the break. Oh...that was wonderful. Only one day I woke up at 4:30am...this was because I had a little boy who though tit would be fun to wake up so early. It wasn't. But it turned out well as we made our first trip to the zoo later that day. No, he didn't take a nap. But it was fun anyway.



Every other day I woke up at 9:45am or so...woohoo!!! I felt really rested.



But then I went back to work. Immediately I was faced with my real world again. We had planned on one thing happening as we went back...it seems the plan was changed on me over the holidays but I wasn't made aware. This started my downward spiral and really was a rude awakening. So was 5 am that morning.



And it continued...working to reinstate the original plan (which, by the way, takes a great deal of effort and was required for my sanity). Then, as soon as I got that done, I was asked to come into my bosses office for a surprise appointment the next day.



Ugh...it turned out to be a good thing (?). She was offering me a promotion. It comes with more than a 10% pay increase and an annual bonus increase. Sounds great right? It is a major switch in focus than what I had planned...it is taking me a completely different direction than I was expecting and than I've been involved with. And there is no one qualified or willing to take my spot. So, as my bosses boss told me on Monday...it will likely be 4-6 months before we fill the position (because we'll be looking for the right candidate). *sigh*

The problem (?) is that I just can't do something half way. While many, many people would be able to just drop the old job and let someone else deal with it, I can't do that. I just can't. There are things that I've committed to or have been working on over the last year that I want to make sure get done...right. And I've really had a great opportunity to change things for the better in SO many different ways. My role directly or more closely dealt with that before...I'm not sure how much my new role will deal with that, so I don't want to let go of that responsibility as I let go of the tasks of my old job. It's hard to explain.

And then there is school. Can I tell you how school has gone so far (and its only been in semester for a week!)? It started out by losing a scholarship because someone lost my paperwork saying that I accepted it (really?)...I called and called throughout the semester to check on things but didn't get any response until the last week of the semester (when I owed $500 for the scholarship) and finally hear that I need to prove that I sent it...how do you prove that you sent a fax from a fax machine at your work (a large corporation) eight months ago? (let me tell you...its impossible...especially because that fax machine has since been replaced)...so it took a while for me to come up with the money...meaning I couldn't register until the day school started...the next day, while I was at class (the last day to pay...) I had planned to get to class early to pay for classes, but there were several early afternoon accidents and it took a long time to get there...during class I got the message that one of my classes was canceled...which is devastating because I'm in the middle of residency which means I have to do 2 semesters in a row full-time and I needed that class, otherwise would have to start over again. which isn't an option. So instead of paying the tuition on the break, I was rushing to figure out what class I was taking (i was already taking an independant study because none of my other classes were available, and, because registration was closed for the semester) now since the other was canceled. On the way home from class (9:30pm...after everything else so far)...the darn blackberry gave me the message that my classes were cancleed because I hadn't paid tuition. Don't forget registration was already closed and I need to take full-time otherwise I have to start full-time year over. Shear panic and depression. The rest of the night I was contemplating whether this was my sign that I need to quit.

The next day I was able to call and they told me I had to come down there by 4:30 pm to speak to the academic dean...not only do I not know who or what that is, nor could anyone tell me on the phone, and, don't forget...I'm working 2 full-time jobs that are extremely stressful and I had a full agenda that day. I had to drop everything, last minute, postpone several meetings, then drive up there, meet with a crazy number of people I didn't know, and 3 I did. But I had to wait 3 hours to speak to the last one. By the end of the day I was tired and all cried out.

Oh, I forgot to mention that because my classes were dropped, the one class I had "for sure" from the beginning was full and someone else got the spot I left behind. Fun huh?

It all got worked out. I'm tired. I'm drained. I'm frustrated. I'm almost never a negative person...I almost always see the glass half-full. Right now though..I'm not there.

I'm doing my best to be grateful...and I'm having more and more minutes and hours where I'm back to me, but I'm less resilient to bad stuff. I'm worn down.

Oh...did I mention when I got back to the office Friday I thought I'd have a great day catching up and getting things started right? That was, of course, until lunch when one of my best friends collapsed and at points I thought she was going to die in my arms. Yeah. It sucked.

So, please, forgive me for being depressing and stressed and absent for a little while. I'll get back to being "myself"...but isn't there something about when I am weak He is strong? Then, as Paul says, to God be the glory...for me to live is Christ, to die is gain..., so let Christ grow in me now when I myself am nothing. The day before my friend became ill she was encouraging me and I told her something along the lines that I know that in situations like this, when I'm just beaten down, it becomes obvious to me if no one else that it is Christ who provides for me and cares for me and gives me everything I need...it is not about me...I just keep moving, trying to go His direction, and He'll do the rest.

Sometimes I need humbled.