7/5/17

i'm thankful that my first day back at work was tiring but something i could handle. i'm thankful to be happy to get to spend time with my coworkers again. i'm thankful for the time we spent yesterday afternoon trying to guess what the middle initials of our coworker stood for–i'm thankful for our glee when one of us managed to guess one of the initials. i'm thankful to have gotten frustrated dealing with the API of the company where i used to work but i'm thankful that rather than endlessly bash my head against it all evening, i stopped myself.

i'm thankful that though we seem to have brought ants with us back from california, i will buy ant traps today to kill them. i'm thankful for the spray bottle of peppermint essential oil water that d shoots at them, which smells nicer than the windex i would have used. i'm thankful that i can scratch my mosquito bites when they itch, even though i know that's not the best thing to do to mosquito bites. i'm thankful for what my mom taught me when i was a kid, which was to use my fingernail to make a cross in the mosquito bite, even if that isn't really scientific (i'm thankful for the ludicrousness of linking to a reddit thread i lazily googled as if it's science).

i'm thankful to have remembered something i didn't write about in my trip recap, which is how interesting it was to see d's dad give a sermon for the first time. i'm thankful that his sermon was about a biblical verse about giving people a "cup of cold water" and for his focus on the specificity of the word "cold" and what it means to give a cup of cold water rather than just a cup of water, and how the kind of care that implies is what christians should be trying to offer the world. i'm thankful for that message, even if where the sermon ultimately went (describing jesus as the only true water, etc.) kind of broke the metaphor and lost me. i'm thankful for his passion and for his smile.

i'm thankful that i did yoga and meditated yesterday afternoon on my lunch break. i'm thankful that i did those things, even though maintaining the discipline to do them now feels difficult. i'm thankful for the contrast of that to my practice just a little over a year ago, when i worked at the university and always spent my breaks in either focused mindfulness or moving through sun salutations. i'm thankful to hope that i can force myself to make this into a regular habit again, since i know that doing these things makes me feel better than not doing them. i'm thankful that i am still good at doing headstands and that they still make me feel good.

i'm thankful for the roll cake from the korean bakery that d's mom forced her to bring with us back to indiana. i'm thankful that while this seemed like an imposition at the time, the cake is very tasty and we've enjoyed having it for dessert the last few evenings. i'm thankful to remember one thanksgiving when i was in college and tried to make a roll cake from a recipe in a magazine and failed miserably, the roll breaking in multiple places and looking really ugly. i'm thankful that i was frustrated and upset but that my mom encouraged me to try again from scratch and i'm thankful the second time it looked the way it was supposed to, which was gratifying, although actually eating it i realized it wasn't that good. i'm thankful that this cake is better and that there is still some to have for dessert tonight. i'm thankful to have things to look forward to at the end of the day.