Friday, November 30, 2012

Thursday Up/Down, Finally

Elephant

Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens, Galveston, TX.  (2011)

I have missed writing the occasional Thursday Up/Down post, so this week I’m bringing it back!  Of course, today is Friday, so I’m a day late.  But I jotted down the inspiration for today’s post yesterday (with a few add-ins today), so we can say this post was hatched on a Thursday.  Yesterday was a really nice day.

On the Up side of things we have:

* Crisp fall weather and a glorious morning bike ride.  (Well, one crisp fall morning.  This morning we were back to balmy November weather.)

* My grant-writing is going well.  This one has been pretty exhausting, but my fingers are crossed that the hardest revisions/rewrites are behind me.

* Speaking of grant-writing, I spent a delightful hour at the wine bar, drinking a very interesting Merlot and editing my grant.  And friends, let me tell you: my grant sounded awesome.  This is the protocol I will now follow every time I need to edit for content.

* After an hour of editing, friends joined me and we had an evening of wine and gourmet food-truck food.  Delicious!

* Oranges are coming into season.  I bought a big bag of cuties and have been eating them all week.

* Buying presents for other people.  When it comes to gifts, I’m equal opportunity: I like to give and receive.  The holiday season is always a time of brainstorming for gift ideas and enjoying the generosity.

*Gabrielle Bernstein’s TED talk.  This talk was fabulous and exactly what I needed to hear this week.  You all know that 2012 has been a hard year for me—I won’t reiterate that here.  Listening to Gabrielle talk about letting go and forgiveness made me realize that it’s time to begin letting go of 2012.  I have spent much of the year dwelling in the past and worrying about the future, and I’m ready to let all that go.  Out with the sadness, in with the joy!

* And finally, I have nothing for the Down side of things!  Happy weekend, all.

5 comments:

Raquelita said...

Yay for so much up! We are on our second box of cuties here. I have been taking 2 or 3 in my lunches most days for the past couple of weeks.

Rosiecat24 said...

Yay for the cuties! I've been taking them for lunch too. They make me so happy.

Hey, I was just thinking about you tonight as I reread this post, and it made me happy to think of you settling into Alaska and your new job. Optimism for the win!
http://lifeloveandfood24.blogspot.com/2011/03/its-work-in-progress.html

And if I weren't optimistic about my prospects, I would not be still be working on this grant and still moving my project toward completion :-)

Rosiecat24 said...

(Hmm, I hope I don't sound all smug and self-congratulatory. Considering how anxious I am most of the time, any level of optimism is a minor miracle.)

Chrissy said...

I fully approve of your editing process! I also like to implement this system during the writing process. :)

Rosiecat24 said...

Hee hee! I love that, Chrissy. I, however, definitely cannot drink and write at the same time because alcohol makes me too relaxed to focus. I'm actually really surprised that I was able to edit while drinking! I tried to sip slowly, so maybe that helped.