Gratitude

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

Our prompt for the month of November was Gratitude.

I realize I have a lot to be thankful for, and not a lot of pictures to match these things, so I'll have to do the best I can.

Family and Friends, above all my teenage son who will still humor me and visit the Coca-Cola truck with me. On the night of the first snow no less. It was magical! It was also the night the Christmas lights were lit for the first time this season. 

I am fully aware of how lucky I am. Other families struggle with their young adults because they drop out of school, do drugs or make other bad decisions that will influence their life in a negative way, and I'm over here, sipping hot chocolate with my sweet boy.

I'm also grateful for the "clean up feature" I got with the latest Mac release. It allowed me to completely erase the crowd that was ruining this picture! Genius!

Home: While having a roof over your head is obviously reason enough to be grateful, our home has improved so much this year. I hired a professional who did a great job decluttering parts of our house, and I followed up in other rooms myself. Yes, it was a pricy and time-consuming thing to do, but I am so glad things got done! I get to sit in our living room and actually enjoy some peace and quiet without feeling guilty and stressed because everywhere I look there's stuff that needs to be taken care of. 

Speaking of peace and quiet: In a time where the Middle East and the Ukraine are still under pressure, and the U.S. elected a wanna-be dictator, I am super grateful to live in neutral Switzerland. Of course we are affected by the things that happen elsewhere in the world, but at least our own small bubble is in good shape.

Music: During my colleague's two-week vacation absence, I had to work full-time in addition to my other commitments as a hockey mom and "housewife". So I was confronted with a whole load of pre-Christmas hustle and bustle. That wouldn't be a bad thing, because I plan ahead and am organized. However, when I can't rely on suppliers and courier services, my time buffers melt away, and I get irritated. For invitations that we actually wanted to send out in mid-November, I was expecting specially made flyers to be announced for Friday between 11am and 1pm. However, a lot of snow fell during the night from Thursday to Friday, which is why the status was changed to “End of Business Day”. 

Since Friday evening, the message has permanently read “The delivery date will be provided as soon as possible.” Of course, the telephone computer didn't help me any further. On the contrary, it was acting super stupid and I was so annoyed that the “phone call” recorded for quality and training purposes now included swear words from me. 

But now to the part I'm grateful for: I'm not a UPS driver who has to make late deliveries to unhappy customers in all weathers. Joking aside, I am grateful for the newly discovered music station in our office: “Flashback FM” plays hits from the 1980s and 90s all day long. 

This definitely contributes to the fact that I'm not annoyed for long, but instead tap my foot and inwardly sing along to Ace of Base, Bon Jovi or Billy Idol. The delivery arrived on Monday, two of my coworkers helped to assemble the envelopes, and the 1,000 invites got shipped on Tuesday. So far 15 or 16 people signed up for the breakfast meeting taking place mid-January. I hope some more will do the same. 

I didn't get to take a photo of the “mailing production”, but here's a picture my husband, who's also my boss, took of me while I'm pretending I'm already labeling the envelopes for the Christmas cards by hand ;-) Consider this your bonus picture!

Health: This time last year, a fall in which I injured my arm brought me to the doctor, and I left the practice with poor blood lipid and blood sugar levels and high blood pressure. I did what I had to do, I changed doctors! And that's no joke, I really did, but I also made great efforts in the area of diet and exercise. No, I never go to the gym, but my beloved pasta and pizza are now only on my plate in exceptional cases, and ideally I reach 10,000 steps several times a week. I mainly try to get these steps in places worth seeing, and I'm grateful that I live in a place where they exist! This is a five minutes' walk from where we live!

Oh, I forgot to mention: Compared to last Nov/Dec I'm down 25 pounds, lipids and sugars are considerably better, and my blood pressure is down by 40 whatever the unit is. 

Blue Sky Days: It's hard to live underneath the fog for weeks and weeks, and if for a change you get a nice sunny, blue sky kind of day, it's reason to be happy and thankful! OK, full disclosure, November 2024 did not deliver! The photo above I took on a walk, is the only one I could find matching this theme, so allow me to use this one I took on December 1st when I went to see the Harley Santas ;-) I may mention it next month when we post about "Holly Jolly".

For now check out my fellow bloggers' contribution to this month's topic.