thank you notes 8/2
i'm thankful that yesterday was mostly a very good day at work. i'm thankful, since the end of the day was suddenly so hard and unpleasant, to remind myself of that fact, that the day was mostly very good. i'm thankful that i spent a large chunk of the day restructuring one of my team's tools to make it more useful and thankful that though there were some growing pains related to me doing that restructuring as a flood of tickets came in, i think it's going to be a good change in the long term. i'm thankful that my supervisor set time aside for me on a weekly basis to pursue projects like this. i'm thankful to be able to make changes like that here, whereas at my old job it was very hard to divert from the path of institutional inertia. i'm thankful to understand that with power and freedom like this there also comes a degree of responsibility and ownership that i wasn't burdened with at my old job.
i'm thankful that to be helpful to my coworker at the end of the day as a flood of tickets came in, i jumped in and grabbed two tickets from the queue, even though those tickets were really hard and caused me to have to work late even though i couldn't figure out how to resolve them by myself in that time working late. i'm thankful, since that felt bad, to remind myself that i did everything that i could about the tickets and that it's not the end of the world to not be able to solve a problem and that i'm new at this. i'm thankful to remind myself that nobody on my team is going to be mad at or disappointed in me for not being able to resolve the tickets. i'm thankful that the customers i was working with were also very understanding and thankful to realize that i probably could have stopped when my workday was supposed to end rather than working late and they would have been okay with that. i'm thankful to remember that for next time.
i'm thankful to know that part of the reason that the end of the day was so stressful was because i was hungry. i'm thankful for the opportunity to remind myself of the importance of eating enough to avoid hanger/hanxiety. i'm thankful that d was okay with waiting until later for me to make dinner. i'm thankful that though i slightly burned the portobello mushrooms i was sauteeing, that actually made them slightly more "burger" like. i'm thankful that though we blew the kitchen fuse by running the toaster oven at a high heat setting to cook the sweet potato fries while also using the microwave to warm buns and melt cheese, i didn't get overly frustrated like i did the last time that happened and remembered the importance of switching the circuit breaker back on. i'm thankful that though our dinner was late and my stomach hurt from the stress and emptiness, it was tasty and satisfying.
i'm thankful that, after spending most of my adult life not realizing how much i love caramel corn, to now know that i love caramel corn. i'm thankful that i learned this a few years ago when d bought me bacon caramel popcorn from mouth.com for my birthday and i inhaled the bag in one sitting. i'm thankful that i bought a plastic tub of caramel corn at the supermarket this week on a whim and thankful that when i felt worn out and sad yesterday evening, i ate half the tub. i'm thankful for the caramel corn, which was not the best that i've ever had, but hit the spot and had an interesting maple overtone. i'm thankful for cold mint tea and watermelon. i'm thankful for the small cube i am making from the red wax wrappers of babybel cheeses.
i'm thankful for this essay about buying a couch. i'm thankful to have (mostly) fixed one of the doors to our bedroom, which has been fucked up since just after we moved in. i'm thankful that the issue was that the holes holding the top hinge to the door frame got stripped out and wouldn't hold, such that the hinge was always coming loose and needing to be rescrewed and then coming loose again after opening and closing the door a few times. i'm thankful that i thought i could solve this with an epoxy putty i found at the hardware store which seemed like it should be simple (just squirt it in the hole), but was not simple. i'm thankful when that failed (when i failed to do that, more accurately), i just moved the hinge up on the door frame and drilled new holes for it. i'm thankful to have felt proud of this small bit of home repair, even though it became evident that there was a problem with it, which is that the place the hinge was originally was in a little recess routed out of the frame, whereas my new hinge position was not recessed and so when i tried to close the door, it would not really close properly.
i'm thankful that we lived with this happily through the winter, since we didn't really need to keep our bedroom doors closed anyway. i'm thankful to have rediscovered that it was an issue early this summer, when it became necessary to keep both our bedroom doors (on opposite sides of the room) closed in order to keep in the air conditioning. i'm thankful for the funny way that when the other (not-fucked-up) door was closed, it would cause a pressure imbalance in the room that would pop the other (fucked up) door, which i had wedged into the frame as well as possible, open. i'm thankful for the small annoying comedy of this and how d would try to close the (not-fucked-up) door delicately in the hope that it wouldn't pop the (fucked up) door open, which usually wouldn't work and the door would pop anyway. i'm thankful that sometimes if i really tried i could lift and manhandle the door more securely into the frame, even though this was a pain in the ass and not worth it.
i'm thankful that recently, newly frustrated by the inability of the door to properly do one of the two simple things required of it (close), i bought a mr. grip screw hole repair kit. i'm thankful that yesterday after a hard ending to my day in which i was unable to solve the problems of the customers i was working with, i decided that i needed to accomplish something and that i would fix the door hinge. i'm thankful to have removed the hinge from the frame and from the door and to have propped up the door, which was still attached to the bottom hinge but putting stress on that, with a book about qigong that i bought and haven't really read. i'm thankful that, unlike the messy epoxy putty, the mr. screw kit just required me to cut some small metal strips and slide them into the old screw holes and then rescrew through the hinge into them in the routed out recessed slot that had been used in the past. i'm thankful that as the screws were screwed in, they gripped against the small metal strips and held firm. i'm thankful that a few minutes later, i closed the door properly for the first time in a long time. i'm thankful to have gone over to the other (not-fucked-up) door and opened and closed it repeatedly—i'm thankful to have seen the pressure change exert a small force on the other door, but thankful that because of the strength of my repairs, it stayed closed. i'm thankful for the satisfaction i felt standing there watching the door stay closed.
i'm thankful that we lived with this happily through the winter, since we didn't really need to keep our bedroom doors closed anyway. i'm thankful to have rediscovered that it was an issue early this summer, when it became necessary to keep both our bedroom doors (on opposite sides of the room) closed in order to keep in the air conditioning. i'm thankful for the funny way that when the other (not-fucked-up) door was closed, it would cause a pressure imbalance in the room that would pop the other (fucked up) door, which i had wedged into the frame as well as possible, open. i'm thankful for the small annoying comedy of this and how d would try to close the (not-fucked-up) door delicately in the hope that it wouldn't pop the (fucked up) door open, which usually wouldn't work and the door would pop anyway. i'm thankful that sometimes if i really tried i could lift and manhandle the door more securely into the frame, even though this was a pain in the ass and not worth it.
i'm thankful that recently, newly frustrated by the inability of the door to properly do one of the two simple things required of it (close), i bought a mr. grip screw hole repair kit. i'm thankful that yesterday after a hard ending to my day in which i was unable to solve the problems of the customers i was working with, i decided that i needed to accomplish something and that i would fix the door hinge. i'm thankful to have removed the hinge from the frame and from the door and to have propped up the door, which was still attached to the bottom hinge but putting stress on that, with a book about qigong that i bought and haven't really read. i'm thankful that, unlike the messy epoxy putty, the mr. screw kit just required me to cut some small metal strips and slide them into the old screw holes and then rescrew through the hinge into them in the routed out recessed slot that had been used in the past. i'm thankful that as the screws were screwed in, they gripped against the small metal strips and held firm. i'm thankful that a few minutes later, i closed the door properly for the first time in a long time. i'm thankful to have gone over to the other (not-fucked-up) door and opened and closed it repeatedly—i'm thankful to have seen the pressure change exert a small force on the other door, but thankful that because of the strength of my repairs, it stayed closed. i'm thankful for the satisfaction i felt standing there watching the door stay closed.
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