Gratitude Journal #35
Last week, I felt just really run down. I only left the house once, for 15 minutes, to take the dogs on a walk. Otherwise, I spent the entire weekend in my pajamas and did nothing productive, not even come here to talk about what I was grateful for. That means this week, I need to get caught up.
Gratitude Entry #82 – Erik’s stuff.
Our friend Erik lives in Sweden. A lot of his stuff lives in our house. Most of his stuff is in the attic in the garage, and I do not think about it. But currently, his XBox One and PS4 are both hooked up in our bedroom, to two different televisions. One of those televisions is, you guessed it, Erik’s. (A second television of his is in use in the roommate’s room.) Yes, this is decadent. It also allows C to play a video game on one of the consoles while I use the other to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. We used to just have a smart DVD player hooked up to the second television, but it was old enough that it could not support CBS All Access via Prime. So now, the PS4 is in use. It is something I could easily live without. But it is nice to be able to be in the room, curled up with the dogs, and hanging out with C while I watch TV. So, I am grateful for the ability to do so. And therefore, grateful for Erik’s stuff, which makes it possible.
Gratitude Entry #83 – Dog Parks
We have been incredibly lucky, living in the Seattle area, to have lived relatively close to good dog parks for the last 15 years or so. There was a time when we were at the dog park multiple times a week, or at least every weekend. That has changed in the last few years, but we still like to go to the park. And so do the dogs. Today was a beautiful sunny day in the Seattle area, at a time when most days are rainy, so the dog park we went to was really busy. Larry and Junebug got to run around, interact with some other dogs, and basically just take a walk where they each got to move at their own pace.
They are now getting older (10.5 and 11.5), so we did not stay as long as we might have, but they loved every minute of it. They explore, sniff, bark, play, and ignore us. It is delightful.
Gratitude Entry #84 – Excel
I have been using Excel as our checkbook for over 18 years. It never makes a math mistake. As long as I enter the numbers and enter them correctly, I know how much money we have in the bank. But Excel does so much more. I have categories of spending set up, and when I flag an expense as a certain category, Excel color codes it for me. In addition, I have a sheet set up to track the spending in each of those categories every month, to make it easy for me to check how we are doing against our budget.
Right now, we are approaching open enrollment for insurance at work, and this allows me to figure out what we have spent on medical costs this last year and help decide what insurance plan is going to be the best fit for us next year, as well as start planning out a new budget.
Yes, I am a bit of a budget and finance geek, so I love this. And I am so grateful that programs like Excel exist.
Gratitude Entry #85 – Live Music
One of the amazing things about living in the Seattle area is the number of bands that come through here. Our favorite bands almost always make a stop in the area when they are on tour. Just last week, we went to go see LIVE perform. This was at least the 6th time we have gotten to see them perform, and the 4th time we have gone with a couple specific friends. It is just so nice to be able to go see a band we love just a short drive from where we live and even better that we get to share it with good friends.
