Thankful

OK, so I'm stealing this from Rebecca, who borrowed it from someone else, but it seemed like a good place to start.

Something functional in my house that I'm thankful for is my awesome coffee maker that does special tricks. It's not exactly as good as having someone else make it for you but it's pretty darn close.

Something about my body that I'm thankful for is my hair. It seems like other people want theirs to be like it, so I guess I'm pretty lucky to have it.

Something hard that I've been through that I'm thankful for is the robberies I lived through at the bank I worked at back in 1995 & 1996 -- I realized I'm made of much stronger stuff than I had originally thought, and that I'm pretty decisive in a crisis, even if I'm not the rest of the time. I decided then that if I could get through those brief moments, I could get through just about anything (and it has proven to be true).

Something about this country that I'm thankful for is our diversity - in the various cultures trying to live together, in our geography, all of the different religions, and in our political opinions.

Something about 2008 that I'm thankful for is my decision to finally go back to school to pursue an MBA after thinking about it for a decade.

A word I'm thankful for is altruism. It's fun to say and a pretty nifty ideal.

A sound I'm thankful for is the horn at the RBC Center when the Canes score a goal.

A place in nature I'm thankful for is Bodega Bay, California.

Since U Been Gone

I've been away a while. I've been kind of busy...

There was the funeral. A trip to Indiana to see dozens of people I didn't know but who all seemed to care about my grandfather and my family (we should all be so lucky). Catching up with my cousins. The trip home that took an extra 9 hours.

A lot of work. A coworker and his wife (who have been friends of mine for years) leaving for El Salvador to pick up a long awaited addition to their family, but which left me with more work to do (and teach) while he was away. I'm not the slightest bit upset by it, but it has disrupted things for me. Learning lots of new things and figuring out how to change a bunch of things easily, but change is never easy, so it's taking too long...

The last days of the hockey season. For a while everything was peachy...then it wasn't. Things came down to the very last game, and then someone else's very last game before we really knew it was over. It was heartbreaking, but given all the other stuff I've got going on in my life right now, an easy thing to get over.

The decision to apply to grad school after 12 years of thinking about it. Signing up for a test I thought I could take easily then taking a practice test and finding this may be harder than I thought. Studying. Studying. Studying.

A trip to CA (I'm there now) followed by a business trip to Las Vegas tomorrow. A surprise fancy-pants dinner while I'm there that will require an emergency trip to the mall in the morning. Three little league games in one day and a trip to American Girl Place (wow).

Just lots of...stuff. A new phone, an old car, a sunburn. A new goal, a new dress, something to look forward to...just what I've been up to since I've been gone.