The Friday Rundown -- 5 Positives to Focus On

Let me just say that this has been a week.  A week of highs and lows, and tears and anger, and yummy food and skipped meals.  The whole Spring forward thing always throw my body into a tailspin, but I am enjoying the extended daylight into the evening hours.  With that being said, here are 5 things I am thankful for.

1) Fabulous friends who will come stay at our house, take care of our dog and let us have a weekend to celebrate my FIL's upcoming 75th birthday.

2) A belated wedding gift of an overnight stay in downtown Seattle. We'll be staying at Hotel 1000 and since this is a mini-vacation we are going to indulge in massages Saturday afternoon.  This girl cannot wait.  I love a good massage.

3) Great food.  Food is simply my love language.  Yes, I know it's not a legitimate love language, but I really appreciate good food.  Lots of family are in town for a long weekend as we celebrate the FIL so it's night after night after night of good food.  Family style Chinese, Metropolitan Grill, Dim Sum, fried chicken, and who knows what else.  What can I say.  I love food and I married into a family who loves to eat.  Win, Win!

P.S. When this week got to me, take out of Crispy Garlic Chicken from Bai Tong was how I coped.  Then I got to surprise the Mr. in his lunch with the leftovers.  And that's how I get wife points.

4) A husband who brings me breakfast in bed.  He has to fast for 8 hours today for a physical so his last change to eat was at 5:45 this morning.  Since I have a 6 AM meetings every other Friday, he got up, made breakfast, and brought it to me in bed.  I may still be in bed.  I really need to teach that man to make me coffee too.  ;-)

5) Like minded financial goals.  The Mr. and I are both fans of zero debt and have always paid our bills and debts on time and even early.  We were able to start our marriage with nothing but two mortgages as our debt, and that's how we plan on keeping it.  Still there are the months when the bills are a little higher, and I am thankful that because we have both always saved and always paid things on time, when the bills are higher we aren't stressed or wondering how they are going to get paid.

So that's it.  I thought after the funk of this week I needed to focus on the positives because after all I have a roof over my head, a man who loves me, and family and friends who stand by me.  

What I'm Loving

1) My library membership.  Specifically the ability to download books to my Kindle or ipad to read.  Plus did you know you can check out cookbooks?  I'm sure you did (I'm always late to the game) but I currently have a Weight Watchers book and an Alton Brown book that I am reading while I eat.  Yes, cookbooks are reading material.  I love to dream that I could make all of the recipes and they would be as pretty as the pictures and taste as good as I dream they would taste.  All this while eating a Tyson Chicken Pot Pie or a Tostinos pizza, mind you.

2) Reading.  I used to read a lot then I stopped for a bit.  However, I've been indulging lately and getting lost in a story.  For those interested, I am re-reading the O'Malley series by Dee Henderson and the Maggie Hope series by Susan Elia MacNeal.

Dee Henderson released Full Disclosure this past year which is a fabulous book if you've read the O'Malley series.  (Note: it would be great on its own, but if you've read the O'Malley series, it is even better!)  Then she has a new book coming out in May to tell the story of the final O'Malley who had a thread through all the other books.  So re-reading the original series is both fun and necessary.  I'll probably even re-read Full Disclosure after reading the original series again because I enjoyed it that much.

I don't remember where I first read about the Maggie Hope series, but the title "Mr. Churchill's Secretary" caught my eye.  I added it to my Amazon Wish List for Books I Would Like To Read and when I got my library membership I immediately downloaded it.  I read it on a recent trip and just loved the characters.  Then I realized it was a series so #2 is waiting on me.

3) My friends.  I mean really, could God have blessed me any more than He did?  I just spent a glorious long weekend in Charleston, mainly plopped down on a couch at Danna's, in sweatpants no less.  I got to eat Chick-Fil-A for breakfast and eat queso and chips at Senior Tequila.  (Note: Seattle doesn't have queso or Chick-Fil-A.  It's tragic.)  I got to hang out at some point with Abigail, Stacy, Annette, Lauren, Davida, and Whitney.  It was refreshing, encouraging, full of laughter and tears.  I love these people and in a perfect world, I could just beam me there or them here in a moment.  But I'll settle for our weekends here and there and just soak them in as much as I can during that time.

4) My Mr.  The fact that the he and I can be apart and realize it's not the end of the world, but that we love each other enough to know that those times grow us.  He lovingly let me go see my people and then told me he missed me.  He then left me alone to go on a work trip and I miss him.  Though we both admit we enjoy having the bed all to ourselves.  30+ years of living alone will do that to a person.  Or persons.  But it's still nice when we're together again.