Comments (29)

By kilax, December 28, 2009 6:55 am

Yeah, this is going to come off as cheesy, but I have to get it out there.

I had a lot of  “how lucky am I?!” realizations this year. Without going into too much detail, I will just say that 2009 involved some changes in our financial situation, and I had a hard time adapting. Not that we were spendthrifts before… we weren’t. We just didn’t have to think twice about going out to the movies, to Subway, or where to buy groceries.

Now we rarely eat out, only see movies if we have a gift card, and do most of our shopping at a discount store.

And it’s no big deal.

But change is hard.

I am embarrassed at how long it took me to adapt to being more financially aware. And embarrassed at how long it took me to realize how lucky I am as it is.

I have a roof over my head. I can still afford to make payments on a luxury car. I don’t go hungry. I have a gym to use. I have a wii to play. We can still afford Netflix. We’re healthy. I can run!

And most importantly of all, I have wonderful people in my life. People who love me enough to come all the way out to the Chicago suburbs to see me. Friends who send me emails and snail mail. Blogger friends who actually read what I write and leave me wonderful and thoughtful comments!

And of course, my partners-in-crime – Steven and Data. I cannot even count how many times this year I have looked at my husband and thought, “How did I get so lucky? How is it that I ended up with him? How lucky am I that we ran into each other at that random party at college?” We have so much fun together. I think we help each other be a better person. We support each other. We let each other be themselves. We work through things the best we can. I just feel so lucky to have found a wonderful partner.

Yeah. I told you it was cheesy.

I don’t want to make resolutions, but this seems to be something I am thinking about a lot (last week too), so I’d like to work towards being more grateful and mindful in 2010. I want to live in the moment. No more looking forward. I need to be grateful for what is in front of me. What I already have. Aspirations and goals are great, but I need to keep in mind how lucky I already am.

Do you have the “how lucky am I?!” moments? Share them!

And how could I NOT be grateful for this little furball? He even helps me with blogging. Hmm, maybe that should be “help” in parenthesis!

Comments (20)

By kilax, December 22, 2009 5:07 am

This is a weird post, because I am trying to pinpoint where a feeling is coming from… and I really can’t. So please bear with me and let me know what you think. (P.S. Steven turns 29 today! Happy Birthday you old fart Steven!)

As you may recall, my floor potluck was last Thursday.

There are about 100 people on my floor and I think there was enough food for 300. Seriously.

There were at least 6 rooms filled to the max with plates and plates of food. I actually took photos to show you how ridiculous it was, but it would be inappropriate to post them. Basically, there were two dessert rooms, three rooms of entrees, one appetizer room and I think one more room filled with food. It was just too much. It was overwhelming.

I have been in situations where there is WAY too much food per person (hello, family gatherings) but it has never made me feel this bad, and grateful at the same time before.

I felt guilty that there was just SO MUCH FOOD for each person. And I think almost everyone contributed something. The potluck had an “ethnic” theme, and since I work on such a diverse floor, there was an amazing variety of food (a lot homemade). Just, so, so much of it. I kept saying, “I cannot believe how much food there is here. We are so lucky.” And I was grateful that everyone was so generous! And the party was a blast. We had food set up all over the floor, and people were congregating all over, chatting cheerfully and singing songs… it was very festive.

I just felt weird being around so much food. I knew a lot of it would go to waste and I knew the amount of food present was not necessary. I felt wrong to indulge in so much food, for some reason. I guess, I just feel like there is no reason to have 75 different dishes. It’s too much. It left me feeling bad.

Of course, after I wrote this on Saturday, we went shopping for groceries for ourselves and 3 extra people who will be here for 5 days. We had to shop at four different stores (ugh) and our first cart looked liked this:

And we had this many groceries to put away:

Hypocrite much? We are definitely focusing on simple meals, and not making a TON of dishes (drives me nuts) but still that is a lot of food. ‘Tis the season to indulge?

What do you think? Have you ever felt like this around an abundance of food before? Or am I just thinking about it too much?

Interestingly, Paige wrote some similar thoughts on cruise-ship food at the end of this post – I bet she would love to hear additional feedback! Check her post out.

Comments (15)

By kilax, April 13, 2009 6:01 pm

I am ridiculously overwhelmed at work. The details don’t matter. Just imagine being super busy all day long and never catching up, even though you are trying SO HARD to do so. You’ve probably experienced what I am talking about.

It’s going to be like this for awhile. I’m really trying to fight the anxiety and stress it’s causing me.

Even though the day wasn’t great, I still left the office feeling good. I was able to come up with a list of things I am grateful for, and that cheered me up:

1. My supportive husband: I called Steven around 8:30 am because I needed to share my stress. He gave me good advice, “You can only take it one day at a time.” That’s what I needed to hear. I am going to break it down even more. I can only take it one hour at a time. Even though the hours are flying by… Later he wrote me a very encouraging email, telling me he knew I could do it, and to break my workload down into tasks, and to modify my “personal work system” to accommodate the changes at work. What a sweetie.
2. My awesome coach: I have a coach at work who oversees my work and guides me. We work on all of our projects together and get along wonderfully. I am more and more grateful everyday to be working with such an awesome teammate.
3. After raining all day, it stopped during my walk to the train station this evening.
4. Fencing class: I am going to be releasing some frustration tonight. Sorry, classmates. But it’s gonna feel good.