Five things that made me happy today – 8/31/19

1. A little misty this morning, and still cool and cloudy. Late afternoon temps in the low to mid 70s.

2. Successful trip to the Proctor Farmer’s Market. I got corn, tomatoes, flowers, and scones and lemon bars. I also got rained on, just enough to spot the windshield on the car.

3. For lunch we had tunafish salad sandwiches, sliced tomatoes, and corn on the cob. The corn was really good today.

4. As I was taking a walk around the campus on the way to the Wellness Center, I came upon mama deer and a fawn. They are so tame that they just continue grazing when you walk up to them.

I promise she was as close to me as it looks! WOW!

5. Oregon began its football season today against Auburn. (#GoDucks) They played at Jerry World, which has always been a jinx for Oregon. And the jinx got them again in the last 9 sec. (I’m happy that the Ducks played well, but I’m not happy with the result. *Sigh*)

How about you? What made you happy today?

Intentions Review for August 2019

My Star Word for this year is “Empathy”. The internet defines empathy as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Merriam-Webster says, “Empathy is similar to sympathy, but empathy usually suggests stronger, more instinctive feeling.”

Here are my intentions for 2019.

Physical Health

• Continue to eat real food, and, hopefully, lose about 20 more pounds this year. – I’ve lost 3.2 lbs this year so far (I know, I gained some this month, *Sigh*). I blame my birthday, a trip to see the Watters Minor, and a trip to watch whales. Zero control when everybody else is eating cake and ice cream. 😦
• Continue to average 150 miles a month on my Fitbit. – Last week, I averaged 12,700 steps a day.
• I’m back to doing pretty strenuous exercise with my personal trainer including walking outdoors (up and down hills), chest press and close grip row machines, shoulder strength, balance, core exercises, and sit-to-stands. This week I did 20 sit-to-stands in 1 minute. I felt pretty good about myself.

Emotional Health

• I AM trying to remember “empathy” in my interactions with people I meet.
• I have continued posting Five Things that Made Me Happy Today every day here on this blog. I’m always surprised when I meet casual acquaintances who tell me how much they enjoy reading my list. I don’t do it for other people – I do it for myself – to remind me how much I have to be thankful for.

Intellectual Health

• Expand my leisure reading from fluff mysteries to more substantial novels. – Books read this year.
  1. The Library Book by Susan Orleans – finished
  2. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens – finished
  3. Becoming by Michelle Obama – finished
  4. Womanish Midrash by Wil Gafney – finished
  5. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – finished
  6. The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter by Hazel Gaynor – finished
  7. Entering the Passion of Jesus by Amy-Jill Levine – finished
  8. Silent Night by Danielle Steele – finished
  9. Autumn by Ali Smith – finished
  10. Winter by Ali Smith – finished
  11.  A Good Year by Peter Mayle – finished
  12.  Magnolia Nights by Ashley Farley – finished
  13. The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman – finished
  14.  Wife of Moon by Margaret Coel – finished
  15.  Cleaning the Gold by Karen Slaughter and Lee Child – finished
  16.  Beyond the Garden by Ashley Farley – finished
  17. Everything is F*cked – a Book about Hope by Mark Manson – finished
  18. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd – finished
  19. The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – finished
  20. There, There by Tommy Orange – finished
  21. Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf – finished
  22. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd – finished
  23. Calico Joe by John Grisham – finished
  24. The Nickle Boys by Colson Whitehead -finished
  25. Turtles All the Way Down by John Green – finished
  26. Kindred by Octavia E Butler – reading
• Continue to read the Washington Post and the New York Times for reasonably non-biased reporting. – I scan the headlines and read articles that interest me.
• I subscribe to Medium, and read articles of current interest.
• I also subscribe to The New Yorker magazine, digitally. I keep up with the east coast scene through it, as well as some pretty decent profiles of political figures.
• Continue to watch the Rachel Maddow Show to feed my angst and resolve. – Check
• Great Decisions discussion group here at Franke Tobey Jones was Cyber Security. We didn’t have a discussion leader, but Big Al found several more current articles to read.

Spiritual Health

• Continue to participate in weekly Bible study, and weekly Worship.
• Try to carve out time daily for intentional prayer and meditation. I’ve subscribed to several email “prompts” that arrive in my inbox every morning. The Upper Room has a couple of short reflections and/or devotionals every morning, and A Network for Gratefulness also gives me something to think about as I go about my day.
• I’m lobbying for my church to become an Earth Care Congregation with PC(USA). I’ll meet with the Mission Committee in September to (hopefully) get the final go-ahead.

Social Health

• Tend the relationships I have at Franke Tobey Jones. –
  • I still regularly attend the Gazebo Group (the folks who meet on Monday evenings for Happy Hour.)
  • I  participate in the Wellness Center activities like the Owen Beach walk most Fridays.
  • Spent 3 days with folks from here and my granddaughter on a Whale Watching trip, an historical tour of Port Townsend and three nights in a hotel, meeting up for breakfast and dinner as a group. Generally a congenial group.
• Tend the relationships I have at Bethany Presbyterian Church. – Check
• Tend the relationships I have on Social Media. I’m making an effort to avoid posting or reposting political articles, although I do still try to call out blatant racism, sexism, misogyny, etc. when it comes to my page.

Miscellaneous

• Participate in Town Halls and face-to-face meetings with elected officials.
• Attend GA Nominating Committee meetings, both face-to-face and virtually. Next meetings are scheduled for an on-line meeting in November and a face-to-face meeting in March.
• Support #BlackLiveMatter, #Me,Too, #ThePoorPeople’sCampaign, #ClimateAction, and other social justice movements. – I donate regularly to MoveOn, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. I attend rallies and marches if I’m available.

 

Five things that made me happy today – 8/30/19

1. Temperate and cloudy most of the day today.

2. Big Al fought the good fight with the dentist who was supposed to be making a new set of dentures for him. He’s been trundling back and forth for a couple of months and they never seemed to get the lowers right. Finally they sent him to a guy who actually MAKES dentures. They will pay for a full set from the guy who knows what he’s doing. I would have been happier if they had given us back our $2000 and called it quits, but at least he’s getting a set that will fit.

3. Wellness Center trip to Owen Beach this afternoon. Not a lot of people there today, I guess almost everybody is waiting for the weekend.

There was a Mama and her daughter just sitting on the beach. I think Mama was reading, and the puppy was content to lie on the stones.

4. Ice cream on the front porch of Lillian Pratt today. We had spumoni or coffee. I preferred the spumoni and I had a cone of that.

5. Then Big Al, feeling good about the outcome with the dentist, brought home a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Whoo, hoo! (Good bye, diet.)

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/29/19

1. Cloudy and high 50s in the morning; sunny, bright, and warm (mid 70s) in the mid-day; currently cloudy with thunder in the distance and low 70s/high 60s in the late afternoon. This southern girl misses her late afternoon thunder storms so hope springs eternal.

2. Up very early this morning for an 8:45 appointment at the ophthalmologist. All is well. Not much change in my prescription, but he did say the lenses were scratched, so I’m getting new glasses. I opted for plastic frames instead of wire frames this time. I’m tired of cleaning my glasses and having the lens fall out in my hand.

3. Big Al had to get up to take me because I’m a little shaky driving with dilated eyes. I placated him with brunch at Knapps after the appointment. Eggs, blueberry pancakes, etc. Very tasty. Knapps is a North Tacoma fixture. It’s been there for forever.

4. Because my eyes were still sensitive to bright light, my trainer and I worked out indoors. Lots of walking, agility, balance, and strength. Whew. I always feel good about myself when we finish.

5. College football gets going in earnest on Saturday. #GoDucks Oregon plays Auburn at Jerry World in Dallas. Jerry World is always a jinx for the Ducks, but maybe they’ll break it this year. Fingers crossed.

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/28/19

1. Another bright, sunny day today. Blue, blue skies, and temperatures in the low 80’s.

2. Big Al went off this morning to work at the food bank. He really enjoys doing it and looks forward to our church’s turn, which comes around every 5 weeks.

3. Today was the “Birthday/Anniversary Dinner” here at Franke Tobey Jones. Anyone who was born or married this month gets a free dinner in the dining room. I had salad, roast pork, broccoli, corn, and noodles, followed by birthday cake and butter pecan ice cream. Too bad Al missed out, but I did bring him a piece of birthday cake.

4. After lunch I went down to the Wellness Center, because I realized that I really needed to get rid of some of the calories I had just eaten. I made it to my 10,000 step count.

5. I started a new book this morning – Kindred by Octavia Butler, the author of Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents that I read several years ago. I hope it’s up to her usual standards.

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/27/19

1. Bright, sunny day today. Blue, blue skies, and temperatures in the low 80’s.I think the weather still thinks it’s summer.

2. Bible study this morning we talked about Sabbath – how we practiced it (or not), how we grew up with it (or not), and what we thought about it.

3. At the beginning of Bible study, I was cleaning smudges off my glasses, when, suddenly, the lens fell out in my hand. (This is not what made me happy.) I left early and managed to drive home not wearing any glasses because both eyes without is better than one eye corrected and the other blurry. (This is what made me happy.) Big Al drove me to the optical shop and the nice lady there found a new screw and put it in for me. I have a little, tiny screwdriver to repair the glasses with, but, unfortunately, without the glasses on my face, I can’t see the screw or its hole well enough to fix them.

4. Good discussion of cyber security today in Great Decisions. We didn’t have a discussion leader, but we did very well just using the questions in the book. Big Al had found several articles on the subject that were more recent than the fall of 2018 (when our study book was published.

5. I’m beginning to believe that we’ve GOT to quit thinking “America first” and “How does this affect ME?” and start thinking about economics and political power globally.

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/26/19

1. Bright, sunny day today. Blue, blue skies, and temperatures in the low 70’s.

2. Once more my friend, Hugh Hollowell Jr, provided me with a “pick-me-up”.

3. Good workout with my personal trainer. 10,000 steps by the middle of the afternoon.

4. Read and (mostly) digested the chapter for Great Decisions tomorrow. The title is Cyber conflict and geopolitics. Thankfully I watched “60 Minutes” last night and they had a segment on cyber ransom attacks. So I guess I know a little. I also know that both my sons are obsessive about backups and virus protection, and they have nagged me into being generally the same.

5. Gazebo Group tonight. Great to have happy hour with my tribe!

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/25/19

1. Bright and cool this morning. I dressed in a summer, churchy blouse, and changed into a sweatshirt before I left for church.

2. Got to church early, in time to sign checks before the 11:00 o’clock service. There was very little sermon because the theme was The Power of Music. The prelude was Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. We sang favorite hymns and songs, and also heard “40” by U2. The preacher said when we sing together, we breathe together, and become closer.

3. Lunch at Moctezuma’s. I had Chimichanga Del Mar, and Big Al had a beef chimichanga. Napping and contentment all afternoon. Before we went to lunch I had to change into my third top of the day – too warm for a sweatshirt by noon, so I’m in a t-shirt now. I may change back to the sweatshirt before bed.

4. This morning when I looked out in the backyard, the deer family was back. Mama, a yearling, and two half-grown, still spotted fawns.

5. I think I finished the itinerary for Betty’s visit the end of September. We’ll have a really good time I think!

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/24/19

1. Clearing skies, and warmer temperatures this morning.

2. Third day in a row for breakfast at the Spruce Goose – a really good café at the Jefferson County International Airport, Port Townsend, WA. Scrambled eggs, ham, and to-die-for cinnamon roll.

3. We made a stop at the Port Townsend Farmer’s Market, and I got heirloom tomatoes, green beans, flowers, scones and lemon bars. (I’m afraid the lemon bars got a little squashed on the way home, but what could I do?)

4. We stopped in downtown Port Townsend for a final potty break before we hit the road. I also had a couple of scoops of ice cream to tide me over until dinner time.

5. Back to Tacoma shortly after noon. Erika picked up Kate about 3:00 to go to Seattle to do back-to-school shopping before returning to Kennewick tomorrow night. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing the financial books for the trip (not too bad). Then I booked hotels and the ferry for when Betty is here next month.

How about you? What made you happy today?

Five things that made me happy today – 8/23/19

1. Up and out to breakfast in cool, misty rain.

2. We got to downtown Port Townsend in plenty of time to catch out tour.

3. This was a cute ride for the tour of the historical town. Unfortunately it was still misty rain and about 55. Port Townsend has a large number of Victorian houses that are on the register of historical buildings. In fact, there are so many the town has been designated a National Historic area.

4. We enjoyed the ride and would have had a better time if the weather had been warmer. They handed out blankets, and we wrapped up.

5. Lunch and dinner both figured heavily on seafood and fresh salad vegetables. Very tasty.

How about you? What made you happy today?