Switching to Facebook

Please be aware I wIll be moving to Facebook for further gratefulness posts: https://www.facebook.com/jeff.craig.9066

Thank you

Double gratefulness (9/24/2018)

Two gratefulness matters today, which I think are reasonable to roll into one post here as they occurred one right after the other.

First, I rolled into my condo complex parking lot to complete my drive home from work just about 15 minutes earlier then has happened in many, many months. Seems like for once everything fell into place perfectly.

Secondly, after getting out of my car, I discovered in my postal mail a refund check from the medical group I use. A very modest amount, mind you, but every little bit helps.

So definitely two points to be really grateful for!

The heat will be on, but for now.... (9/23/2018)

What's looking like a fairly brief  heat wave is forecast to develop mid-week. So, I am grateful that for now temperatures are still quite comfortable.

Getting back on track (9/23/2018)

I am grateful for the realization I was letting myself get off track on doing these posts at least once a day, to explain at least one thing I am grateful for, even if I am having a bad day.

Costs (Retroactive for September 22, 2018)

Learned that plans are in the works for the funeral of one of the matriarchs of my extended family, who fairly recently died at age 97. To allow plenty of time for travel arrangements to be made, the plan is for this to be in November.

And I was grateful to discover if air travel reservations are made pretty soon, it look like the cost will be very reasonable.

Cool (Retroactive for September 21, 2018)

I am grateful the weather in San Diego has been relatively cool lately, especially mornings.

New option (Retroactive for September 21, 2018)

I'm grateful the cafe at work has started offering cold brew coffee. I definitely like cold brew.

More silence (9/20/2018)

I was grateful this morning for a second straight night (*gasp*) of condo neighbor silence. Amazing.

Silence (9/19/2018)

I was grateful this morning when I woke up and realized the condo neighbors had been effectively silent during the night. No barking dogs, no people talking outdoors, et cetera, et cetera.

I was just reminded of this a few minutes ago when the dogs started up barking. D'oh!

New procedural note

Finding these posts are generally getting no visits at all, beyond what I am guessing are a couple initial hits by Google indexing bots, I am changing titling from simply being the date to a brief descriptive title. Trying to apply this to every post made so far.

Automated prescription refills (9/18/2018)

I am grateful that a fairly recent updating of the pharmacy software at Costco has provided optional automation of prescription refills, and really works pretty nicely. (The system sends one a text specifying what prescription should be refilled, along with a numeral to reply with to accept the refill.)

However, when a prescription reaches the last refill, it is up to the patient to request renewal of it manually, by whatever method is preferred.

Battery recycling at work (9/17/2018)

I hunted down and collected a serious number of never used, expired batteries at home last week. (Which reminds me, it has hit me that buying batteries at Costco is not really viable in the long run for single people.)

Now, my workplace offers collecting of used and expired batteries for recycling. This was originally intended just for batteries used at the office, but it quickly became a program for batteries used in personal items at home or work, and the firm immediately went to tacitly accepting batteries brought in from home.

So, I was grateful earlier this morning to be able to bring in a large baggie full of expired batteries and dump them in one of the recycling containers.

September 16, 2018

I wear a 29-inch inseam. As a result, finding pants can be difficult, as manufacturers presumably do not see much of a market (or any market at all) for that length inseam.

So, I am grateful that today I found (all at one store) four pairs of good quality pants with 29-inch inseams! A little pricey, but definitely worth it in the long run.

September 15, 2018

I am feeling both grateful and relieved today that my printer, which had been very balky (refusing to feed paper from one of the two trays, whereas that had worked fine just three days ago), suddenly decided (for no apparent reason) to no longer be balky at all.

September 14, 2018 (Gratefulness post four)

I am grateful that my staycation week allowed me to get a badly needed haircut done today, and not have to wait for tomorrow, as would normally be the case.

It helps that as I was the only customer in the shop during the cut, the barber spent several more minutes working on it then I guarantee would be the case on any Saturday, when they'll normally see the two or three barbers on duty that particular day all working at once and usually at least one person waiting.

September 14, 2018 - (Gratefulness post three)

My aunt June passed away this morning, and I just want to note here that I was always really grateful to have known her; she was a wonderful lady,

September 14, 2018 (Gratefulness post two)

Feeling grateful City of San Diego has a nice web form for reporting potholes within the city.

Of course it helps if one actually remembers to find and use this form after seeing/feeling a pothole. *Cough, cough, cough*

September 14, 2018

For reasons I will not get into, the staycation I have been on this week has largely been within my condo. As it so happened, this has also been the week my condo HOA scheduled complex-wide tree trimming.

As a result, I am going to be VERY grateful that today will mean the end of the audible charms of the tree management firm's wood chipper! (I suppose the concept of a  relatively quiet wood chipper is impossible at this time.)

(Follow-up note: Just discovered there are electric wood chippers out there. But from what Google shows me, looks like as the technology currently stands, they're generally smaller than standard chippers.)

September 13, 2018 (Gratefulness post two)

Feeling grateful I was able to splurge a little and get, along with a sandwich, some very, very nice still-warm chocolate chip cookies at a Subway shop.

September 13, 2018

I am grateful the first ever defrosting needed for my seriously elderly refrigerator seemed to go well.

Planning to replace it fairly soon, but couldn't ignore the serious amount of ice building up within the refrigerator compartment.

September 12, 2018

Very grateful to have completed a training course that was a strong deep dive into the workings of the main application I use for my job every work day. It's called ActiveBatch, which is an enterprise processing automation and scheduling tool. I've been aware it is very powerful, but that I was barely scraping what it can do.

As noted, the training was a deep dive into it, and even with this the vendor labels my knowledge now at intermediate level! Gads.

That said I am glad the original plan for the training (live instructor-led) was canceled due to insufficient interest for the planned date. So I switched to their on-demand version, which is all prerecorded videos. Even spreading those out over three days, including today, was quite stressful. (It's led to muscle strain headaches today and yesterday.) So I don't want to think about how the live instructor-led training would have gone, as that is intended to all be done in one day. /shudders/

September 11, 2018

Very, very grateful to have received by download the e-book of _State Tectonics_, the conclusion of author Malka Older's Centenal Cycle. (The proceeding novels were _Infomocracy_ and _Null States_.)

Older's central concept, micro-democracy, is a true breath of fresh air, especially in the current states of political chaos that are occurring. I am not going to try to explain or describe micro-democracy, and will instead point to the author's own discussion: https://www.tor.com/2016/11/08/heading-towards-infomocracy.

Also looking forward to the continuing characters, especially the highly kickass Mishima, and Ken and Roz, among others.

September 10, 2018

I am grateful that on this first day of a week long vacation, I am already feeling somewhat more energetic then I have for many weeks.

September 9, 2018 (Gratefulness post 2)

I was grateful earlier today when I went grocery shopping & I found a parking that space that put the car fully in shade from a tree. Nice!

September 9, 2018

I'm grateful an angry condo neighbor in the middle of the night shouted for only 2 or 3 minutes at most & didn't get any response at all, so I was right back to sleep.

Way too often I have heard full blown arguments start with one person going on in such a manner, and someone with them decides to respond in kind. (Or two people shouting at each other simultaneously.) So it was a relief there was just the one short rant this time.

September 8, 2018

I don't want to get into details, but it's been a very uninspiring day.

On the other hand, I can always say I am grateful for nice weather, such as we have had today.

September 7, 2018

I'm grateful that though I started my drive to work this morning several miuutes late, traffic was very smooth and allowed me to arrive only slightly late.

September 6, 2018

Grateful for discovering the previously mentioned Alan Richman. Really sharp writer I am greatly enjoying.

September 5, 2018

Very, very grateful my car, a 2009 Honda Fit, is very, very reliable. Which is indicated by my seeing when I parked at work today that it had just hit precisely 100,000 miles. Problems have been remarkably minor and far between.

The most serious service matter has been the seemingly universal need to replace defective Takata airbag inflators. Those replacements were completed on the Fit several months ago.

September 4, 2018 (Retroactive post)

I am grateful for the promptings at work to warn about phishing emails that led me to realize I had received just such an email.

The major thing that sent up a flag for me about the email was it had an unsolicited PDF attached to it. Very, very odd and suspicious.

Something I had learned about phishing is it appears to come from a trusted source, and such was the case here; it showed as being from the vendor of an application I use every day at work, and which I will soon be taking specialized training on that this vendor supplies. Due to this training I have been in contact with one of their personnel.

So I clicked a button that appears in our corporate email utility that sends suspected phishing email to our data security group. Also received an apology email from the vendor; from the contents of that I suspect they were dealing with a hijacked internal system that was generating the phishing.

September 3, 2018

Feeling better today, so pleased to present TWO notes of gratefulness in one post:

1. I was grateful to see a Mission Impossible movie (the latest) for the first time, in a local theater. Wow, wow, wow, what an amazing, almost non-stop thrill ride.
2. AND I was very grateful to experience my neighborhood's Little Free Library for the first time.

My understanding is Little Free Libraries basically function as a point for exchanging of books, basically take a book, leave a book (or return a book taken previously.)

This one in Serra Mesa is located on a the outside of residential fence, on a sidewalk, on Mission Village Drive just before it intersects with Admiral Avenue. This Google Street View image was taken before the Library was installed: https://goo.gl/maps/2GV9fE6aBdo

I especially like the location because it is very near a middle school, and students going to the school and going home walk right by it. Hopefully it gets lots of visits from them!

So, I stopped by this morning to take photos and see if I could make an exchange. Here is a front view of the structure:

There is actually a tiny live, planted garden of succulents on the roof of the structure. Here is part of it:

And lastly, here is the interior before I start rummaging around:

I did make an exchange. I left a science fiction story collection I had not re-read in some time:

And I took this book, by restaurant critic and food writer Alan Richman. I've started it and am enjoying it:

 

September 2, 2018

It has not been a particularly good day, to be very honest, but at least I am grateful that the bad muscle tension headache I've had much of the day is by now lessening quite a bit.

September 1, 2018

I'm grateful I had the sense to self-edit myself to NOT do something that I realized could have come across as being stalkerish.

No blood (8/31/2018)

I was grateful earlier this morning when I got a small paper cut, and it did not bleed at all.

Ooops (8/31/2018)

I am grateful the full 16-ounce plastic bottle I dropped a little while ago did not make a direct hit on the toe it touched, Could have been nasty.

Errors (8/30/2018)

Yea verily, multitasking kills. But at least I can be grateful that my errors so far today have not been truly grevious.

Voice strength (8/29/2018)

Feeling grateful to be getting back to regular singing at rehearsal of the church choir I am in this evening. The choir has been off for about a month, which occurs annually in July or August.

The concern is I am aware, as a Parkinson's Disease patient, that the voice can be affected by PD. I've been aware previously that regular singing can be a help in this; a friend whose husband died some years ago of PD recommended to me a singing group that is dedicated to PD patients for just that purpose. Their schedule did not work for me, but I've come to realize regular rehearsals with the choir plus singing at last three Sunday mornings per month are a great alternative.

So, with this month of choir off time, I have more and more been feeling my voice starting to go south, and thus my gratitude about going back to rehearsals.

And I will definitely want to remember to inquire with our music director about recommendations for voical exercises I can for future choir times off.

Albondigas soup (8/28/2018)

Highly grateful for today's lunch at work: albondigas soup. Super tasty!

Procedural note

So that was all of my Twitter-only gratitude posts.

Thinking from now on any day's posts could go either way.

• Either originally here, then shorted (if need be) on Twitter, OR..
• Originally on Twitter, then copied over to here.

So that will be effective tomorrow, August 28.

Very nice traffic

I was grateful a little earlier for my sweetest after-work commute in months. Brakes only needed at intersections & not much then!

Music

I'm very grateful for outstanding music at church this morning: two organ-piano duets and a piano-flute duet. Absolutely terrific.

(I did pass this on to the musicians.)

More neighborly silence

Grateful for my condo neighbors being entirely non-noisy during the night (as opposed to the previous night,) Also zero instances of dog barking, which is exceedingly rare,

Sleep effectiveness

Grateful at realization I seem to have slept better last night than I had thought, despite neighbors being noisy.

Moderate weather

I'm grateful for another day of really moderate weather in San Diego!

Neighborly silence

I'm grateful for the moment ones neighbors who've been yammering all night finally decide to go to sleep,

Relief via nasal rinse

Did the nasal rinse again shortly after getting home, and what a relief! I'm grateful the preparation for rinsing is simple and quick.

Leg function

I an grateful my legs seem to have somewhat more life in them right now then they did yesterday, when they were really dragging.

Nice weather

I'm grateful the San Diego area is having really comfortable weather today, which I just took a walk in.

Tasty chicken soup.

Highly grateful for the excellent chicken soup from the cafe at work today.

Novels by Tim Dorsey

I'm grateful that the whole span of comedic crime novels by Tim Dorsey are refreshingly entertaining & funny. Am currently on the 14th, _When Elves Attack_.

Leg/knee pillow

I sleep only on my sides, so I am grateful every night for my leg/knee pillow, Just impossible to find a consistently comfortable leg position without it.

Nice dinner with relatives

Grateful for a nice dinner yesterday with my brother and sister-in-law.

That Stan is quite a guy

I am grateful for this very amusing tweet giving me my first real laugh of the day.

Jeff Craig added,

Dea Poirier  🐲 @deapoirierbooks

Nice nap

I'm grateful for the really nice nap I woke up from a few minutes ago.

New episode of video series "Another Dirty Room"

I'm grateful for Dan Bell's wildly entertaining video series (adults only), "Another Dirty Room", latest of which is at: https://youtu.be/zBVyg7AU9VQ 

Tilley hats

Very grateful for hats from Tilley Endurables that both fit my huge gourd of a skull AND provide good sun protection. (Especially after removal of a non-aggressive melanoma from my neck last month.)

Neti pot effectiveness

Very grateful restarting use of neti pot for sinus rinsing is clearing up chronic post nasal drip, and thus clearing up my chronic cough.

Amazon Locker convenience

One thing I really like about Amazon Lockers is if you have more than 1 order delivered to a Locker location, the pickup code for one will open the lockers for all your orders at that location. I'm grateful for not having to bring along the evidence of two or more pickup codes,

Yogurt parfaits

Grateful for really nice yogurt parfaits at work.

Coffee really nice tasting black

Remembering the Breakfast Blend coffee available at work tastes quite nice black, and I am grateful for that.

Free food!

Cashier for work cafe didn't charge for today's yogurt parfait. I didn't follow her explanation, but who am I to argue, and I was definitely grateful for it.

Initial thinking about gratitude

Earlier this year my church's lay minister gave a sermon, the subject of which has been percolating since for some time for me. (Note the sermon link is audio only.)

Basically, the topic was feeling gratitude and expressing it to others, and the benefits one can realize by so doing. The suggestion was to do so daily, with at least one expression of being grateful, even if it;s about something totally mundane, like nice weather.

So, I began doing so on August 14 on Twitter. Obviously the extent of folks know a person and use Twitter can be limited, I have decided to to work on using both this blog and Twitter.

I'll copy into here my gratitude tweets so far, and from here on post both here and on Twitter,