bits

If you try to be frugal and watch what you spend on everything, except for groceries, something that is easy to rationalize away because you work a lot of long days and easy food makes sense.  It does.

But, then when you go to the bank to see if you have a couple bucks to take out to buy more groceries, and maybe (finally) buy some curtain panels for at least five of the windows along with some of those squeezy expansion curtain rods that do not need you to make holes in the walls, you find that sort of ignoring your checking account and being frugal...except for groceries...means that if you do not keep track of how much money you have you find that you have more money than you thought.  Two and a half times more than you thought.

So, I can get my teeth fixed.  I have an appointment on Monday for the preliminary work and I will be able to pay in cash, the balance after they factor in the money that I have been giving to them to save up for this dental work.

If you finally have a day off, a Saturday, and you plan to meet your friends for coffee and you wake up with a scratchy throat and it is only a tiny bit of a struggle to swallow, and you e-mail/e-phone/electronically do something to communicate with one of those friends that you are going to stay home and rest, and you do that, you will be very grateful that you stayed home.  I promise.

If you have an opportunity to stretch your skills, or develop new ones, and you think you are too busy and tired to join in and then you suddenly are inspired by what someone else does and change your mind and join in the fun-new-skills thing, you will be happy.  Yeah.

If you do your best at one of your jobs and keep trying to learn more so that you can do what you can to improve what you do, maybe you cannot save even the teensiest bit of the world, but you can have a nice and supportive effect on at least the day for another person.  That happened to me six times this week.  I am astounded, as most of the time I do my best at that job and the satisfaction is that I am always trying to do my best, and that truly is enough, but when someone gains an insight or trusts you enough to share some stunningly painful experiences in an effort to ask for change in her/his life, well, that makes the day, for me, just fine.  This week was majorly life-changing for me, work-wise.

I love films and borrow a few from our Library every week, and enjoy them, even the ones that I do not end up liking very much, and still it seems that I am finally old enough to be bored by some special effects.  They were good effects, just not good enough to make it worth finishing the film.  Sigh.

Doing a little bit of something you do not like to do might be satisfying enough to keep on doing it until it is done, or it may not, but at least that little bit is done.

There is little that a nice and pointless snack and/or a wee nap cannot improve.  Oh, maybe the nap might not help if you miss an appointment, and although that has not yet happened (missing an appointment because of a nap) I will keep it in mind.  After checking my schedule, of course.

 Some nice cake can often help when a nice snack and/or a nap do not work.

I was offered an opportunity to adopt a cat this week.  It seems that I am still not ready, because he could be the perfect cat for me.  Three years old, cute, and he comes with a litter box.  He also has a sad story, but I have a couple of weeks to help find a home for him before he is evicted from the apartment where his former family abandoned him.  The building owner is allowing him to live there until he finishes all of the repairs needed from the previous tenants.  He is really cute.

I missed napping, watching The Book Thief.  It was nearly as good as the book, but there was Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson, so I should have expected that.  What is that quote about when you finally understand your enemy that it is also when you begin to love your enemy?  That has to be close, and I am reminded of it during this film. 

There was an opportunity to see the people behind the prejudice, deeply held cultural beliefs and our natural inclination to choose sides.  Not that those things are always possible to avoid, but it was nice to come away from the story not hating anyone, even though there is ample chances to do so.

I am hungry, but all I have here is food that needs actual cooking.  Nothing easy.  No snacks of any kind.  Positively no cake.  Erp.