Yes, still grateful.

I've been working on keeping a positive attitude for the holidays.
The holidays can be tough for a lot of reasons, mostly the message to spend, spend and then spend some more.

Although the economy is sucking air for many, there is still the message to go out and buy and people are going out and well, BUYING.
I'm all for kids having something under the tree. As a kid I remember how excited, nervous, about to throw-up I felt on Christmas morning...at 4am. But I don't think the throng of people I suffered through Saturday were buying only kids/pre-teen/teen toys.

My holiday zest was also a bit diminished by an experience I had with the local and corporate offices for the storage unit I rent. Living in a loft means either being minimalist - which I am not, or having a small storage space - which I do.

I won't go into detail, but I will say they were rude, refused to respond to calls and emails, seemed not to understand what the contract agreement, pretended they hadn't told me information that they had in fact told me and openly told me the manager did not report to anyone at corporate when asked for her supervisor's name. I had decided that I had to walk away, do what I could and move my stuff out of there the first of the year...oh and file a complaint while moving.
This brings me to my second reason to be grateful. See #2.


Okay, I'm going to get off my semi-Christmas shopaholic rant. It just amazes me that people forget what the season is about and only focus on the buying that retailers want you to focus on as if your life depended on it.

So...back to yesterday. On Tuesday I lost my favorite ring. I don't have many rings and I only wear this one when the mood hits me. Well, yesterday afternoon after meeting with my new mentor (grateful story to follow), I realized that I'd lost my ring. Sad, sad, sad indeed.
I did my best to remember that it was only a material thing and that there were worse things to be sad about...so I sucked it up and tried to move on. And viola! My third thing to be grateful for, all before 8am today.

:D



All of my babble leads to my three things to be grateful for:

1) That my professor has agreed to mentor me for graduate school. Oh and he gets the places I want to go with my doctorate. Thank you Prof. Jones for your support.

2) I just discovered that the storage company gave me one month free. (No one called, wrote or emailed this information. It is quietly reflected on the monthly statement.) I am grateful and surprised, but grateful most of all.

3) I found my beautiful and costly ring. It was a gift to myself after going back to school and doing well.