Look, new books! (11/100)

I picked up a book at school yesterday, of which I expected to skim through only the first ten or twenty pages, then put back on the shelf when my next student arrived for our meeting. I actually ended up creating a library account for myself, despite being based in the school library for over a year, and taking the book home. Now I'm fifty pages in. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is interesting, thought-provoking and hopefully useful for being more mindful and happy. Then this afternoon on our way back through the city to the car my husband and I stumbled on a used book sale in a public square. We let ourselves buy two new books even though there isn't room on the current bookshelf for them. Pleasure is reading a stimulating book and knowing other books are there waiting for me.

Floral confusion (10/100)

Flowers have made me happy twice today. First, this morning when I went into the garden to get my bike so I could ride to work, I noticed that our citrus trees have blossoms all over them. I think the warmer than usual Autumn temperatures have led them to act like it's Spring. Lucky for me, if I was singing a Julie Andrew's song, my line would be, 'blossoms are one of my favourite things.'

Then, when I got home from work, there was a lovely bouquet of flowers on our doorstep. I wondered if it had come to the wrong house or perhaps was a misguided birthday present for my husband. Maybe it was from my husband in a rare, archetypal romantic gesture. It turned out to be a belated birthday present from my mum to make up for the one that has been lost in transit.

Telephones, tears and forgiveness (9/100)

Today I'm appreciative of modern communications capabilities. I had a crystal clear conversation with my mum on the phone over thousands of kilometres. My purpose for calling was to work through some issues that a traumatic family event had caused years ago. I'm just now able to offer forgiveness to my mum and myself for our parts in it. The phone line meant we could have the conversation in real-time with no delay even though we're not on the same continent. We cried together, apologised to each other and mentally hugged. Obviously the ideal would have been to have the conversation face-to-face, but that would have meant waiting a year or more until we're in the same country again. As my mum said as we were hanging up, 'you can't put these conversations off. When it's the right time, you just have to have them.' So thank you to telecom companies, to mums and to forgiveness.

(7/100 #100happydays Is written on The Migraine Game blog.)
(8/100 #100happydays I forgot to write yesterday.)

Variety is the spice of work (6/100)

I am again grateful for the diversity of roles I now undertake at work. When I was a full-time classroom teacher the variety came from juggling the needs of twenty, thirty or more students whose attitudes, motivations, tolerances and self-reliance were forever changing. On a larger sense, though, the job was relentless and monotonous: arrive at 8am, plan for the students, keep the curriculum in mind, manage the students and their parents, assess the students, attend a mostly pointless meeting, deal with neurotic colleagues, leave exhausted at 6pm. Repeat every school day. Nowadays, I spend most of my time helping individual students write, edit or reference their assignments. This creates record keeping to be done so that takes up another chunk of my time. A couple of times a week I teach a workshop, which requires planning, preparation of materials and some record keeping. Then every few months we have a night like tonight: recitals/showcase/film awards. I get to go to an interesting venue and see the students, some of whom have seen me for struggles with written work, performing in their element. Tonight it was the Music students, another time I'll watch student short films or wander a gallery of student art work. Every time I'm astounded by the talent, creativity and courage shown by the students showcasing their work.

Home is where you want to go back to (5/100)

I've often thought maybe I am a nomad at heart, or was one in a previous life, because I've willingly lived in many different countries and there is no particular family home from my childhood that I long for or mourned when my parents sold. That said, I don't think I could be a true nomad. I love the little, permeant sanctuary that is our home.

I do love to travel: going to new places, seeing things I haven't seen before, meeting different sorts of people. This weekend's road trip accomplished that and more. The weather turned out better than expected; my husband and I didn't bicker over directions; and we stayed on budget. As much as I enjoy the travel experience, though, I enjoy coming home. I relish the feeling of walking through our familiar front door after being away. I eagerly anticipate sleeping in our bed again. The cuddles and neediness of a cat who's missed us is icing on the cake. I guess that's tonight's message: go away, even for a night, so you can come home again.

On another note: tonight I'm battling self-doubt with this blog. I'm questioning my worthiness to write everyday in a public forum like this. I'm not profound or innovative or very funny. I suspect that these little snippets aren't offering anything to the world. Why am I doing this, I wonder. Then this tiny, stubborn voice in my head pipes up, 'You're blogging for writing practice, for self-reflection and remembrance. That's enough reason.' So I will go on posting as long as I can beat back the demons of self-doubt.

I think I can, I think I can (4/100)

On Saturday persistence paid off. My husband and I went for a hike in the mountains to the northwest of our city. The map said it was four hours of trail with a difficulty rating of 'hard' and lots of stairs. Nonetheless we were enticed by the name and the promised views from the summit. We decided to start, then turn back if it got too much. As it turned out, 'hard' was perhaps a more extreme description than was warranted, at least at our fitness level and given the trail's condition. So in addition to health, beautiful weather and spectacular scenery, I am thankful that we persisted to the top of the trail. We got an amazing, sweeping view and a good workout to ready us for our seven course birthday/anniversary dinner to come. That dinner was another instance of persistence paying off. It's hard work eating your way through seven delicious courses, but someone has to do it.

Oatmeal and internet radio (3/100)

I was in a good mood all day today and I think it was thanks to two things: my breakfast and listening to music most of the day. For breakfast I felt like cinnamon and brown sugar, but that's not a meal so I used oatmeal as my healthy, cinnamon-sugary delivery system. Then I started my work day by turning on Pandora Radio. I typed in my current favourite song, then listened to all sorts of similar music. Happily, because several students cancelled or turned up late, I was able to listen (and even sing and dance a little) while catching up on record keeping for most of the morning and at times throughout the afternoon. To top it all off, it's Friday and my husband and I have a special joint birthday-anniversary celebration planned this weekend (which will mean no blog-posting tomorrow).

Clean air and warm weather (2/100)

Although I generally avoid the news because of its negativity, bias and skewed presentation of reality, it is good sometimes to partake because it reminds me to be grateful. I've been hearing a lot lately about the poor air quality in other places and its effect on the residents' lifestyle. That said, I've just ridden home from work in an unseasonably warm autumn dusk.

It was the perfect temperature; there were no bugs; the looming clouds looked set to dump buckets of rain, but nothing fell on me; and most of all I didn't have to check the air quality before I got on my bike. Therefore, that is the source of tonight's thankfulness: air as it should be and beautiful autumn weather in which to enjoy it.

Blogging everyday (1/100)

I just read some writing advice, from The Write Practice, about the benefits and eventual ease of blogging everyday. That reminded me that this blog was supposed to be a nightly reflection. Once I started working afternoons and evenings that practice slipped as my writing time changed. So rather than sitting here thinking about why I can't start daily blogging today, I will just start.

I have a friend who is posting #100happydays on Facebook. That may be a good way for me to get into the habit of blogging everyday. The ethos of happy days fits with my desire to find gratitude in daily life. 100 days should be enough to create the habit of blogging every morning. Also I have been noticing the beginnings of depression so perhaps looking for the good around me in life will have positive effects.

Therefore, today I am grateful for my writing partner keeping my legs warm and for writing advice giving me a kick in the pants when I need it.

*Note: if there's one day when I haven't written on here, it's not necessarily that I'm not keeping up the 100 days. Then I'm writing on The Migraine Game, my other blog.