Monday, March 15, 2010

Daily 5 - Day 215

Today's Daily 5:
  1. Stopped on my way home at the natural food store that's near the train station and restocked vitamins and some great organic dried fruit and nuts that they sell.
  2. Cooked a proper, nutritious dinner for the first time since moving into Grandma's.  I've been avoiding the kitchen because it's upstairs and definitely in "her domain".  My body was letting me know that this wasn't working, so tonight I cooked.  Italian chicken over couscous, with oven roasted asparagus, mushrooms and cashews, sprinkled with sea salt.  I think my whole body sighed in relief at the normalcy of eating a relatively balanced meal, while catching up on some online TV.  And, there's enough left that I can have it for lunch tomorrow, and then one more meal - likely supper on Wednesday.
  3. Caught up on the latest episode of The Amazing Race online tonight.  The travel fanatic in me loves watching that show.
  4. Grandma mostly just let me do my thing while I was cooking.  That was such a blessing.
  5. I've managed lately to keep up on my Lenten readings - that hasn't been easy to remember in my fairly exhausted state, so it makes me happy to know that I've managed to be a bit more consistent with it this last week.

Good Stuff

I've been loving this blog lately - a relatively new addition to the list I'm hooked on:  Enjoying the Small Things

This post, shared with me by a friend on facebook was brilliant and striking:  I am Still a Pentecostal - An Honest Response

Monday Thoughts

It's Monday morning, and I am sitting in my office, wearing two of the three extra "outer" layers that I wear for the train and bus commute to and from the office.  It's freezing in here.

It's always cold in the morning, because the thermostat for my office is in the office next door, and he turns the heat off overnight.  Monday mornings are the worst, because the heat has been off for a few days in a row.

I'd turn it on, but there is a meeting in that office, and I can't interrupt at the moment.  And anyway, one of the people in the meeting next door overheats at the drop of a hat.  He's the bane of my coworker's existence, since she shares a thermostat with him, and when she turns the heat on, instead of coming to her when he gets to warm, goes and complains to our boss.

So I'll wait for an opportune moment to slide next door and turn up the heat.  And in the meantime I'll wear several layers.  Would it look unprofessional for me to put my toque back on?  Because really, it's my head that's the coldest part of me, and we lose the most heat through our heads, so maybe if I put my toque on, I'd be warm?

I listened to the end of one sermon and the beginning of another on the bus and train this morning.  The second sermon had a portion that made me giggle aloud.  I was thankful that the giggling portion came while I was making the solitary hike across a mall parking lot, empty at that time of day, and not while I was still on the bus or train.

We're having Chinook weather again.  That means that it will be warm, but in the meantime the winds are high, and not so warm yet.

And somehow in my head, the time change over the weekend had seemed to me to mean that it would be daylight instead of dawn when I left the house to catch the bus this morning.  Boy did I miscalculate that one.  It was dark.  All the streetlights still on, having a hard time negotiating across the blackness of the basement to the stairs and door dark.  I know, I know, it'll be light later into the evening now.  But I live in a basement, where natural light doesn't penetrate, so I was kind of hoping for that earlier morning light, for the light during that long first hour of the day that I'm outside.  Because light can make even the coldest and most exhausted mornings seem somehow just a little bit cheerier.  Instead, the last few streetlights just clicked off outside my office window, nearly a full two hours after I left the house.

So, I'm going to wrap my hands around a mug of hot tea, and remember to be grateful.  For daylight that is coming, and spring that is hinting.  For God working in changes, even the ones I really don't like.  And for indoor heating, even when I can't get to the thermostat to make it useful.