Funny how it some times takes a holiday to remind you to sit and reflect on life - your family, friends, work mates, pets. For a long time I was doing really well on stopping for a few moments every day and thanking and appreciating everything around me that I could. But it seems that I have slowly moved away from that and, after Thanksgiving the other day, it was a reminder that I need to get back into the swing again!
One of my most favorite ways to reflect on the good things that happen each day is when our family shares "Highs and lows". We've been doing this for years now, typically at the dining room table during dinner - but some times the following morning on the way to school or after school is out - just depending on when it seems right. You don't have to have lows, and hopefully you don't have them very often...but if you do we try and say whatever our lows are first and then move on to the high, or hopefully many highs. At the very least, no matter how boring or mundane your day may be, you have to find at least one high! Some days there are funnies to add on to the highs and lows - and those are always a blast.
So, if you ever want to get a glimpse of your families day life, since you aren't always with them, "Highs and Lows" works really well!
Things have been very stressful at work these past few weeks. It's odd, since we celebrated Michaelmas and "slayed" the dragon you would think that things would be getting calmer and easier - but, maybe we missed slaying the beast this time and it's still creeping around out there or maybe we slayed the wrong beast? Either way I need to start reflecting on whether it's something in me that's causing the stress or if it truly is something out there that I need to battle. These past few weeks I've been doing more behind the scenes work to make a change but in reflection I think I need to take on the straight on, no bull shit work to get through the stress.
We were hoping to go up to the cape for part of our holiday break - but it seems that will have to wait. Money is tight, as I'm sure most everyone out there is painfully experiencing, so we will wait until Mr. Curtin's 8th grade graduation. Then Alex, Jared and myself will be heading up there to cheer those graduates on and say high to all our old friends! I wish I could bring Shannon along, but school will actually still be going on down here.
On the plus side we'll be staying put for two whole weeks. We get to open our gifts and then get to stay here the whole time and play with them! Now, if we could only have some snow too. But I know that's asking for too much! HA!
On Thanksgiving day, as we were sitting around the table stuffing our faces and having great conversation I looked up and saw our screen saver working hard on the computer. And there they were, Devin, Shannon and Sierra from our last Thanksgiving we had together and I really wished they had been here with us - or us there. Miss you guys lots!
1 comment:
ahh we miss you too! I forgot about your "highs" and "lows" thing. What a great idea. Its so much better than asking your pre-teen how her day was. The lastest response is ususally " I don't remember". We wish we could have been together. Let's shoot for next year!
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