Gratitude Tuesday - a double dose of F and G words!
When I started writing yesterday afternoon, I was feeling very very down and blue and I've decided to keep that part because it was how I was feeling then. The German did come over last night and even before he came, I was starting to feel much better. After work I got off the train at an earlier stop and walked to a Jewel and bought some groceries, and afterward a bus wasn't coming and I decided to just walk the probably 10 or 12 or more blocks back to my place. At first I was feeling a little sorry for myself but then I told myself to stop all that shit and instead I started noticing all the pretty flowers and the cool brownstones and the new houses and the grass and the wonderful trees - and then I was suddenly feeling so much better! I love it when that happens - when I can chase away the self-pity by gaining some perspective and reminding myself of all the millions of things that I'm grateful for, and by seeing all the wonderful things around me!
So anyway though, The German came over and he brought some of his homemade chili. He made a huge portion this time in his new 12-quart pot (he only brought over one tupperware of it last night), and what I love is that he didn't put as much of his terrible hot spices in it because of me!! Isn't that so sweet! Of course, I was totally justified in asking him to go light on the hot shit because the last time I could only take a few bites due to my mouth burning so much afterward. His chili this time was absolutely fabulous!!! It had so much taste and just the perfect amount of bite.
After we ate, The German helped me (or rather he did most of the work and I helped him) put my new air conditioning unit in one of the windows in my dining room, but I still haven't been able to turn it on yet because I didn't have an extension chord. However(!), I went to Target tonight after work and bought a bunch of extension chords so I can now plug the new AC in, and also plug in a little lamp in my living room, and then I'll also have a few extra ones, too! Yay! And while at Target I also bought two more pair of these fabulous little capri Champion yoga pants - I bought one pair when I went to Target with The Bold One a couple weeks ago, and it's become absolutely my favorite pair of pants to change into as soon as I get home. Oh and I also finally bought a new wallet to replace that one that got stolen back in May - and I've already put all my stuff in it, it's so nice!!! And I bought a big spackle tube and a little putty knife so I can patch the holes above my mirror. I just love Target! I spent well over an hour there looking at everything!!!
What else? Oh yes, this afternoon I went fishing with The Meat and I caught two perch (the first one maybe 7 or 8 inches long and the second one more like 10 or more inches long), two gobies (including one of the biggest gobies we've ever caught), one rock bass, and then the big one - a small-mouth bass that was definitely over a foot long! I felt so cool!!!
Oh yes, I forgot one thing - yesterday when The German came over, before the chili or the AC or anything else, we had sex. It really started before he even walked in the door because as he was coming up the stairs he gave me the look from the top of my head down to my feet and back up again. And he kissed me a few times and hugged me so tight, and walked me into the bedroom and what resulted after a short while was quite a wonderful sex session with lots of fast and hard fucking, just like I like it best!!! :)
Okay, now I'll post my boohoo session from yesterday, and then it's my wonderful lists of F and G things that I'm so grateful for!!!
From Monday afternoon:
I'm feeling very blue today. It's PMS and it's having my parents gone after my hectic week of getting all ready for them. It's TIC being pissy at me and everyone else for not taking care of the time sheets last week. It's missing out on everything fun today. It's everything and anything and I keep starting to cry here at work but somehow manage to blink fast enough to make the tears dry up before anyone notices them. But it's just strangling me because all I want to do is feel the sadness and feel sorry for myself and have a very good cry. It's just after 3 p.m. and I think I'll leave work a little early, at 4:30 or so. Today is just a terrible, terrible blue day. I hate days like this, but at the same time I don't because it's what I'm feeling and I so appreciate having the ups and also the down days like this.
Around noon, I read my horoscope from DailyOM and it was right on:
You may feel lonely and disconnected from your loved ones today. You might be separated by physical distance or simply feel an emotional chasm between you and those you love. One good way to ease your loneliness is to devote some time to loving and caring for yourself. You might first give some thought to the activities that would make you feel content and fulfilled today, and then go about meeting your needs. You could spend some time writing your feelings in a journal, enjoy some quiet time in a natural setting, or engage in a peaceful meditation to fill yourself with feelings of serenity and joy. Through this process, you should begin to feel more connected and balanced within yourself and ease your feelings of loneliness.
The German is I think planning on coming over tonight to install my new air conditioning in my dining room, but I'm not sure that I want him to come. I really don't feel like hearing all his talk of sailing.
But now, I'll stop feeling sorry for myself for a bit and instead try to focus on all the many things that I'm grateful for - and maybe that will help to get me out of my funk! Last week I was too busy to adequately finish all my F words, so today is a double dose of gratefulness for me - all the things I'm grateful for that begin with both the letters F and G!
So today, I'm grateful for:
The 'F' words (there are quite a few because there are so many great F words!):
Family - I love that there are a number of people who I have such a strong connection to for no other reason than our relation by blood or marriage. I love that they are people who I will always love no matter what, and always be on their side, and I love knowing that they will always love me and always be on my side. It feels so wonderful and safe to know that there are these wonderful people out there who will always care about me and my life, no matter what happens. I am so so so so so so so so so so incredibly grateful for that.
Friends - I love the many kinds of connections that I have with different people. I love the way they enrich my life and make me laugh and make me smile and make me love and make me care. I'm not the best person at keeping in touch with friends, it's a terrible flaw of mine, but even when I haven't talked to friends in so long, I honestly still think of them often. Life would be extremely lonely without friends, without those little daily and weekly and monthly connections and interactions, without people to care about and love. I'm so grateful for all the many people who I love and for that smaller group of such close friends who I absolutely adore.
The word "Fabulous" - I love this word! It's a fucking fabulous word if I've ever heard one! And it so often perfectly expresses exactly what fabulous thoughts I'm thinking!!!
Feelings - Even on a day such as today, when I'm feeling blue (although this is helping already!), I love love love that I can feel so much. I love the rollercoaster of life, I love feeling the ups and downs, I love that I can have such strong feelings, whether of love, excitement, joy, sadness, loneliness, and occasionally anger. It makes me feel so alive when I feel so strongly about things - and I think it's part of the reason why I love exclamation points and words like "fabulous" so much - because they really express all that I'm feeling, whether it's good or bad! I love love love it all!!!
Femininity - I'm so grateful for my femininity (which is kind of a hard word to type because I keep thinking I'm typing too many "in's"). I love the curves of my waist and hips, the roundness of my butt, the perky-bouncy-bigness of my breasts :) , my soft skin, my long hair, being much more in-touch with my emotions, and even my little shrieks when I see a spider or when something startles me. I love being a woman, and I love all the millions of things about me that make me a woman. I'm so grateful for all those many, many things.
Faces - I absolutely adore how expressive faces are, how unique all faces are while still having the same general features. I'm so grateful that we have this thing on the front of our heads that can express so many emotions and communicate so many things. And I'm so grateful for my own face, too, which I used to not think was pretty but now I love it!
Flowers - I am so so so incredibly grateful for flowers! How can seeing beautiful flowers not brighten someone's day even just a little!? I love their amazingly fabulous colors, and their wonderful textures, and I love how they just make me a little more happy. I purposefully walk a different way to the train in the morning now so I can walk by so many beautiful flowers, and I take the time to notice them and drink them in every day.
Faith - I'm grateful for my ability to have faith in things, ideas, and people. I'm grateful for my ability to have faith in a higher power, even though I'm still very frustrated right now over what to exactly believe - and it causes me quite a bit of mental anxiety. I'm still grateful for the faith that I have, and the constant ability to have faith in anything.
Fun and Funniness - this is pretty obvious so there's not too much for me to say about it, but I'm so grateful for all the fun I have in life, and the fun I have each and every day, and for all the funny things that happen and cause me to laugh and feel so joyful and light!
Feet - I'm so grateful to have healthy feet, and to be able to walk with them anywhere and anytime I want. And I'm grateful also for being blessed with pretty feet! :)
Fingers - oh my gosh, think about all the things we do with our fingers! Last week when I was on the bus one day, I saw a woman get on whose arm had been cut off a little below her elbow. Everything was difficult for her, from getting her purse to putting her bus card away. I can't imagine just how much more difficult life would be. If I didn't have fingers, I wouldn't be typing right now. I would have a hard time getting dressed and undressed and putting on shoes, and packing my purse and eating and making food, and giving my kittens love. I am really, really, really grateful for my fingers and all that they allow me to do.
Forearms - I absolutely love sexy forearms on men!!! It's one of my things. Sexy strong forearms with good arm hair can get me hot in an instant!!!!
And speaking of hot, there's Fucking and Fingering which bring me to such amazing places - seriously, isn't it amazing how fabulous this little hole and canal between my legs can make me feel! And there's also Fellatio - I'm grateful for being able to make a man feel so so so good! :)
Along similar lines, there's Force - ever since I started reading those wonderful romance novels back in sixth grade, force has been my number one ultimate fantasy. Oh my gosh, I have the most wonderful thoughts going through my head right now!!!!!
And that brings me to Fantasies - I'm so grateful for the wonderful ability of my mind to imagine all kinds of things and fantasize about just about anything, at anytime and anywhere. Fantasies are good, they elicit good Feelings!
Food - I'm so grateful for the tons of food that is always readily available to me. I realize that not everyone in the world or even in this country gets enough food. I take food so incredibly for granted. I throw it away, I waste it, I buy it and don't eat it. I should start treating it with a bit more reverence and respect, because it feeds my body and without it I wouldn't be here for very long, at least not in a healthy way. And some specific F foods I love that come to mind are Flank steak, Fish, Fruit and Feta!
Along the same lines, there's Flavor - I'm so grateful for the millions of wonderful flavors that make food such an enjoyment to eat!
That reminds me of Fragrance - I love all the millions of fragrances out there, and how they can be so powerful and illicit sometimes tiny and sometimes enormous feelings or mental images or memories. I haven't studied fragrance all that much, but I know that it's very similar to color in some respects, in that certain fragrances make you happy, certain ones relax you, certain ones are invigorating, and certain ones make you feel just decadent! I have some vials of essential oils and sometimes I love just taking them out and taking the time to smell each one and try to define the emotional response that it triggers in me. I know I really like the rosemary, and also eucalyptus.
Flirting - I'm so grateful for those little flirting moments, whether it's just an appreciative glance or a few minutes of all-out flirting, that make me feel so alive and desireable and invigorated and special!
Fiction - this is sort of along the line of fantasies, but I'm so grateful for being able to escape sometimes, whether it's through a good book, a movie, a TV show, or my own imagination.
Fashion - I'm not even close to being a fashionista, and I don't even buy new clothes very often at all, and I certainly don't dress in anything super trendy. With all that being said, I'm very grateful for the enormous variety of clothes and shoes and all that out there, so I can find just what I like that's comfortable and looks fabulous!
Fasteners - this one is a little different but I saw the word in the dictionary and it got me thinking. I'm really grateful for all the many fasteners out there that make life easier - zippers, buttons, snaps, ties, and even velcro (even though I really can't think of the last time I used velcro).
Flora - the name of my future daughter!!! :)
Furniture - I'm very grateful for all the wonderfully comfortable and beautiful furniture that makes life so much better! I love comfy couches, and I absolutely adore my new mattress that is just soooooooooo comfortable, and I love my dining room table and chairs so much, and I love my coffee table and console and side tables, and my shelving unit, and my oversized chair, and even the old dresser in my bedroom here that was in my room back when I was a baby. I love the amazing variety in furniture, and the fact that the furniture and decor in our homes can be an extension of ourselves. I love looking at home decorating and design magazines and seeing how they use furniture and so much more to make a room really spectacular. I love all that stuff!!!
Flying - I'm very very grateful that we have airplanes and the ability to fly to anywhere in the world - anywhere, how great is that! Two hundred years ago, when someone would leave their hometown, they would probably never be back. I think often about all the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to this country and left behind family and friends and familiarity for the dream of something better, but left knowing that they would never be back and would never see those people again. That's just amazing to me.
Forgiveness - I'm so grateful for the ability to forgive, and especially to be forgiven by others. I'm grateful for second chances.
Freedom - I'm so blessed to live in this time and in this country, and to have all the freedoms and all the opportunities to do just about anything. It's amazing to me that so many people in this world don't have such basic freedoms that we take so much for granted. It makes me so frustrated when think about that, but at the same time so appreciative of what I have.
Future - I'm grateful that I (hopefully) have a future, and I can look forward to it in so many ways!
And quickly, a few more: Fire, because I love warmth; Folk music, because it's just so great to listen to; Football, both the rest-of-the-world football and American football - because I love manly men being intense and getting sweaty. And finally, Foundation - as in makeup foundation. I wear just a powder as foundation but holy shit does it make the biggest difference and completely smooths out my skin to look gorgeous!
And now, to all the 'G' words that I'm grateful for!!!
Goodness - I'm so so so grateful for all the goodness in the world, and all the good people, and all the good deeds, and all the love that is behind all this goodness - it produces wonderful things and lights up my life.
Grandparents - I love my grandma and grandpa so much, and I love their unconditional love for me even as they try to teach me things and even when I don't call them nearly enough. They make my life so much richer from having them in it!
Guitars - oh how I love the sound of an acoustic guitar being played! And oh one of these days I really really will pick up that damn guitar of mine and start practicing regularly so I can hear the sound of acoustic guitar anytime I want!
Grammar - I just adore grammar!!!! I'm such a dork!!! But I love perfect grammar and I love editing things to make the grammar just perfect!
Garbage cans and dumpsters - I'm really extremely grateful that we have a place to put our garbage, unlike the old days when people would just throw it out on the streets and whole cities would smell like poo and urine and rotting food. I know that sounds gross, but that's what makes me so grateful for having an easy way to dispose of garbage, and having nice garbagemen who come and cart the icky and smelly stuff away to somewhere very far from us!
Gardens - Gardens are filled with flowers and beautiful green plants and butterflies flitting around amongst them, so how could anyone not like and be grateful for the peaceful nature and beautiful escape that gardens provide?!
Garlic - mmmmm...garlic makes food taste so so so good! And it smells so amazing when it's frying away in a little bit of oil!
Gasoline - I don't have a car so I don't have to deal with the stress of higher gas prices, but I'm still so incredibly grateful for gasoline - it lets us drive cars and ride buses and fly on planes. Without gasoline our world would be a very, very different place (well okay I know we'd be using some other form of whatever gas is, but it might not be so easy or accessible).
Genes and Genetics and Geneology - I'm very grateful for the genes that make me who I am and different from everyone else. And I'm very grateful for the extremely intriguing study of genetics and for all they're finding out. And I'm also so grateful for the amazing things that my mom has found and continues to find through her research into our geneology - how absolutely fascinating is it that we can find out who our ancestors were from 300 and 400 years ago and learn things about them and their families and their lives!!!
Germany and The German - I'm very grateful to the area that is currently Germany, because it produced so many of my said ancestors very long ago. And I'm so so so so so so grateful for The German. He has been such a wonderful friend and sometimes lover to me for the past more than three years, and has taught me so many things and introduced me to so many new things and ideas. I'm quite sure that I wouldn't be who I was today were it not for him and how I have grown because of and with him.
Gifts - I love gifts, both little and big! I probably love little gifts more, little gifts like a wonderful email or even a comment that makes my day. So many things are gifts if you step back and see them as that!
Giggles - hearing giggles makes me happy, and when I giggle myself it makes me happy to hear! I love everything silly so of course giggles fit into that category!
Giving - giving makes me feel good and lifts my spirits and makes me feel wonderful! I'm so grateful that we can give anytime - and it doesn't take much - and hopefully someone else's day will be brightened as well as our own!
Glass - I'm very grateful that someone long ago discovered how to make and use glass! It comes in quite, quite handy. My office would be a very dark and dull place indeed if we didn't have all the windows to let the lovely light in. Same goes with my apartment. I love light, and glass does a wonderful job at letting it in! And it also lets me have my little glasses that I use at work to see just a little better. And it would be hard to drive in all weather without glass for the windows. Yes, it's pretty damn handy and I'm quite grateful for it!
Gloves - in the bitter winter, I am soooooooooooooooo grateful for gloves!!!
Goals - I'm grateful that I can set as many goals as I want for myself. I can set goals for tomorrow and set goals for next week and set goals for ten years from now. And those goals give me some kind of plan, and I like plans! And they give me something to strive for.
Grades - I've been out of school for about five years now - holy shit, I can't believe it's been five years since I've had to take an exam! But anyway, I am really, really grateful for grades, because from the time I was very young, I was able to define myself as smart and think of myself as smart because of the grades I got. And other people regarded me as intelligent because of the grades I got. And that was a very important thing to me, especially when I was young because I thought I was ugly and fat and I certainly didn't have any athletic ability, so my fabulous grades gave me a kind of identity.
Grass - I love the smell of freshly-cut grass! Oh it brings me back to summers of my childhood and just that totally free, happy-go-lucky feeling of childhood!
Gravity - I'm grateful for gravity because it's all I know, and life would be very different if we could jump up and keep going (although I would SO love to go in one of those rooms that simulate the no-gravity of space - it would be SO fun to float around and spin in the air and be able to "fly"!!!)
Grilled food - yum, yum, yum!!! I think grilling makes everything a little better!!!
Growing - I'm very grateful for our ability to constantly grow and learn and change and become better people in every possible way!
Guilt - from the dictionary: "a painful feeling of self-reproach resulting from the belief that one has done something wrong or immoral." I'm very grateful for this feeling, even though it really, really, really, really sucks when you have it. But it's a good thing, because it helps us learn and helps us grow and also reminds us that we do have moral compasses and know right from wrong.
Okay, that's it! Next week I will get my list done the night before so it can be up ALL DAY on Tuesday instead of just at 11:59 p.m. But I've been feeling grateful all day long since I've been reading over what I wrote so far and finishing up my list! And now, I'm off to bed because I woke up late today and got to work extra late, which makes me feel like I'm doing the walk of shame when I finally get there.
