Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 158

To be honest, today was one of the harder days I've had in a long time.  A whole combination of factors just came together to make it the sort of day when no matter how hard I tried, feeling positive was mostly beyond my reach.  It was the sort of day when a lot of the items on the daily 5 list are there more because I'm making the conscious choice to be thankful for them, than because they brought true smiles.  It's not true of all the items, but it is true of several.  And that's okay.  It's kind of the point - to choose gratitude in those moments too.  To believe that it still shapes my heart when my heart hurts too much to notice that gentle shaping.

so, here's today's daily 5:

1. Glancing at my "wall of smiles" as I got dressed for the day this morning, and especially noticing a photo taken of my former roommate and I by a waitress at a Peruvian restaurant in Toronto about a year and a half ago.  That evening was a bizarre one in that we had picked up groceries after a day of touring and were planning to cook dinner for ourselves in the home of our hosts who were out for the evening.  We ended up being locked out of their apartment (a tricky lock) and unable to reach them to find out the trick to the lock.  So, we walked.  We stumbled across a Peruvian restaurant and given how Peru has been on my heart for most of my life, couldn't pass it up.  The food was fabulous, and we followed it up with a trip to the drug store to pick up a newspaper and a magazine, and an hour in a coffee shop, eating really decadent chocolate desserts and enjoying our respective reading materials.  We eventually heard from our hosts, and got into the tricky apartment door.  What stands out for me is how relaxed I was - we were in a strange city, locked out, with a complete change of plans - all things that would stress me out.  Instead, I was very relaxed, we laughed, went on a sort of God adventure that culminated in a great evening and a great memory.  One that was especially nice to start out my day with today, given how the rest of it went.
2. starting to have a bit of a morning routine for the days that I have classes
3. making two different very tight bus connections today
4. finally beating a level on Angry Birds that I'd been stuck on for ages
5. eating an Almond Joy bar on the bus on the way home from a challenging appointment
6. stopping to pick up my version of comfort food - Vietnamese take out for supper tonight
7. helpful customer service when I had a problem with accessing some online banking tonight
8. a friend who knew what kind of day I was having and knew that I'd likely need to laugh quite badly and obliged by sending a whole slew of very snarky emails that succeeded in the nearly impossible task of getting me to grin on the bus after my very challenging day and appointment
9. getting a fun email thanking me for a package I sent as part of my goal to send "real" mail to people at least twice a month this year
10. getting notification that my student loan has gone through.  the amount isn't great, but it will suffice for now.  Now I just sign the forms and wait for the cheque to arrive.

Random Things

A whole variety of random thoughts crossing my mind this morning:

• The clicking sound that high heels make is totally a thing that makes you feel empowered when you're wearing them.  It's a fun sound.  Until you're not the one wearing the shoes, and they're the only sound in an otherwise very peaceful hallway.  Then the sound is just annoying
• Getting books out of the university library to write term papers is going to be a pain this semester.  They're in the process of moving the entire library from one building to a new one.  Why, you ask, are they moving the library?  Well, it turns out that the old library tower is quite literally sinking into the ground under the weight of all those books thanks to some construction faults way back when.  The books that have been moved to the new building are on floors that students can't access yet.  You have to request them, and wait 24 hours for a librarian to retrieve them.  No easy trip to pick up 5 books this semester.
• Yoga.  I'm thinking about yoga.  I have hated exercise my whole life (with the possible exception of all those years of synchronized swimming.)  Yoga is the first thing I've ever encountered that not only do I not hate it, I actually like it.  I can make it through a 90 minute Hatha Yoga class without looking at my watch and wondering when it's going to be over.  This is a revelation for me - that there is something that will not only help with my stress level, but will help keep my body in good health, AND I can actually enjoy it!
• I will spend close to 4 hours on the bus today, transiting between school and various appointments.  I wish it was a bus reading circuit, but it's not.  I will however likely manage to do (or at least get a good start on) the ethics reading for next Monday's class while riding the bus for all of those hours.
• I am a back row student.  Always have been, probably always will be.  I like the quiet and the anonymity.  I like that there's no distraction of someone moving and making noise behind me.  It's just my preference.  Plus, if I'm not into the lecture, I can do something totally other than the work for that class far more unobtrusively than if I sat at the front.
• An oatmeal raisin cookie and a bottle of juice is a viable breakfast, right?  Because that's definitely what I had today.  I figure, it contains oatmeal and raisins - both normally part of the breakfast genre.  And fruit juice - lots of healthy stuff in there, right?

FITE

I appreciate Kiva.org and the work they do with microloans, so I was excited when I came across this new project that they're launching, specifically targeting women.

I loved the video.  I thought it was very well done, and wanted to share it with you as well.