Thursday, November 14, 2013

Make Like a Tomato and Ketchup!

Welcome to rapid-fire Thursday, where I get tired of playing catch up and tell you six things that I am thankful for.  I am starting to want to write about real things, but I feel tied to this November commitment, so I today I will make gratitude my bitch.

I am thankful for manual labor.  Horses require copious amounts of it, obviously, but I've also always had jobs that allow me to stay active.  I would go absolutely stir crazy working at a desk, and as I discovered by tons of computer training at my new job, my back hurts after a long day in a chair.  Manual labor is a great way to stay in shape, and can be greatly rewarding when you see what you've accomplished.

I am thankful for sports.  For years I have loved to watch New England's teams and cheer them on, but I was an adult before I really understood how any of them worked.  My boyfriend is a sports fanatic, and he has very patiently answered my questions over the years so that I may better understand what's going on.  He even gave me an appreciation for golf, which I had previously equated to watching paint dry.  It is especially convenient in the restaurant industry to have a good knowledge of sports, because it's a great conversation piece.

I am thankful for my cell phone.  I am old enough to remember the days of land lines and pay phones, and not having the world at your fingertips.  For every time I curse technology, I also thank God for it.  I can think of so many instances where I would have been lost (literally, figuratively, and sometimes both) without my smartphone.

I am thankful for my friends.  I am not one who has a large group of them, and it's on purpose.  I am rather picky about who I hang out with, because I do not want to waste my time on someone who would not do the same for me.  I pride myself in being a good friend, and in my opinion it is next to impossible to be a good, true friend to more than a handful of people at any given time.
Years ago, a friend of mine called me late at night because his truck had broken down on the southern end of the NJ turnpike.  He was hoping I was in the area; no one else was available to help him out.  I drove down from Taunton, MA, to pick him up and then brought him to Springfield, MA so he could spend the weekend with his girlfriend.  Crazy?  Yup.  Did I think twice?  No.

That story reminds me, I am thankful for my desire to travel.  I have seen so many amazing places in North America, and I have met so many great people; I don't regret a moment of time that I have spent on the road.  One of these days I will get to Europe and Australia, too, but I am going to have to save my pennies.

Which brings me to my, um, we'll call it thriftiness.  Honestly I don't know quite how I developed my budgeting skills, but I am so proud to have built myself up from being totally flat broke to having a respectable savings account, zero debt, and enough left over to take a couple of vacations each year.  I quit my job on the spot in October, because I was miserable there and I knew I would not aggressively seek a new, better job unless I HAD to.  I am newly employed at a much (much much much) better place, I am happier, and I did not need to dip into my savings account to survive almost four weeks out of work.

I apologize for a photo-less entry, but I am all done sitting at this computer.  My mosquito-sized attention span expired long ago.  It's time for family dinner and homemade pizza!

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