Saw this mug at Goodwill yesterday. While there have been several recent retirements from my work, I couldn’t think of anyone for whom this would be an appropriate gift.
I am, however, filing this gem away for the next time someone close to me needs a custom retirement gift.
When he hears the shower turn off, Baxter will scratch at the bathroom door, asking to come in. He loves to lay on the drippy bathroom rug while one of his humans is drying off, and he starts purring at maximum volume if that human then covers him with their damp towel.
It’s 10:30am on a Saturday and Connor is still asleep. He stayed up a little later than usual last night, but he must have really needed to catch up on sleep!
This is precisely why we don’t go to the optional Saturday classes at the dojo.
I found this post sitting in my Drafts folder from over a year ago. Although it’s not quite finished, it’s still relevant, so I’m posting it the way I found it.
When my therapist asked me last week how I was doing, my answer was, “Meh.”
Then she proceeded to solidify a concept I’d been toying with for some time: the idea of maintenance vs. a mood boost.
She asked me when was the last time I did something that made me happy… and I didn’t have an answer right away. I had answers to most of her other self-care questions: my last workout was last Thursday, for example.
When I gave it some thought, though, the thing that had most recently made me happy was walking in the local Fall Festival parade with my karate dojo.
But only two days after that boost, I learned that a co-worker of mine had died unexpectedly in his sleep. He was three weeks younger than me, so it hit especially hard — people younger than me aren’t supposed to die of natural causes, much less pass in their sleep. It got me thinking about relationships, and mortality, and all the things I take for granted (including waking up in the morning).
My therapist reminded me that the profound losses and hardships of others doesn’t invalidate the day-to-day experiences in my own life, and made sure that I wasn’t minimizing my own emotions and reactions. That’s hard, though — with this reminder of our mortality, knowing that Greg’s world now has to go on without him, how can I continue to feel put out that I don’t have time for planting bulbs because the rain won’t quit and I have to make my son’s halloween costume? #firstworldproblems
We have a working washing machine again after nearly two weeks without. New clutch, new motor, new gear case, new agitator doohickeys… basically, all-new guts in our 15+ year old washer. Still cheaper than buying a new one, and it works just like new again!