So looking back at this week, through the prism of the Sleeping with Bread meme, I ask myself and ask you to ask yourself:
For what am I/are you most grateful this past week?
For what am I/are you least grateful this past week?
For what am I least grateful this past week and past few weeks?
Yes, death.
In recent weeks, I’ve had to go to a viewing for a 17-year-old girl who was killed in a car crash and a viewing and funeral for a 63-year-old neighbor. Sadly, because she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and the funeral home had to attempt to repair her face, she and our neighbor didn’t look much different from one another. To say that it was quite disturbing would be an understatement.
For what am I most grateful this past week and going into this week?
Life.
After the funeral of our neighbor, two other neighbors of ours announced that they were expecting their first child: the circle of life.
This week, I celebrate my 41st birthday and I’m hoping that the words to this song will be my anthem not only this week, this month and this year, but the rest of my life:
Author’s note: I know it’s Monday, but I’m behind as usual. Bear with me.
So looking back at this week, through the prism of the Sleeping with Bread meme, I ask myself and ask you to ask yourself:
For what am I/are you most grateful this past week?
For what am I/are you least grateful this past week?
For what am I most grateful this past week?
1. Body: This might sound like an odd thing for which to be grateful, but I am: I canceled my account with WeightWatchers.com earlier this week. I decided why pay $17 a month for a program I’m not using? So now what? Mainly portion control, as suggested by one of my blogger friends.
2. Mind: On Wednesday, I went over goals for my reading for the next month and into the summer in this post. I won’t repeat them here, but I’m grateful to be participating in the “book blogging” events in which I will be participating within the next month, from reading Milton’s Paradise Lost to reading Leif Enger’s Peace Like A River. I am also excited about continuing to read more Donald E. Westlake (but I think that almost goes without saying, as I’ve noted previously, he is fast becoming my favorite writer).
3. Soul: I started volunteering at our town’s senior center last Friday and continued this week on both Monday and Friday. I’m helping with getting Meals on Wheels ready for homebound seniors, serving lunch and cleaning up afterwards. While it is not a ministry of our church, it is a ministry nonetheless, especially to an 80-year-old-plus man who has been cleaning the pots and pans for the last 20 years. Hopefully this will give him the opportunity to take a break once in a while.
I saw a blurb in our church bulletin requesting volunteers, especially on Mondays and Fridays a few months ago, and then saw it again recently. At first, I thought it was just something that was forgotten to be taken out, but it wasn’t. With my working two part-time jobs, I have the time, so why not use it toward helping others, I figure.
For what am I least grateful this past week?
1. Body: Just as I am grateful for canceling my account with WeightWatchers.com, I also am not grateful for the same thing, because I don’t have a plan, besides portion control, with which to replace it. However, I’ve been through so many plans over the year. Maybe it’s time to quit planning so much and just work on eating right and exercising more than I have been.
2. Mind: Not reading as much as I would have liked this week.
3. Soul: Missing Mass last Sunday and making a fool out of myself in an e-mail to our church’s religious education director and coordinator for the extraordinary ministers for Holy Communion (the folks who serve the Body and Blood at Mass). Without going into details (too long and not that interesting really), I joked about something that I should not have joked. Sometimes it’s best to keep the jokes to oneself; maybe put them on the blog here or better yet, write them down in a journal or on a sheet of paper and then throw it away. I’ll just say that it wasn’t about Catholic priests and pedophilia, because I find some jokes and “joke posts” like this one to be funny. That said, I doubt our religious education director would find it that funny so no, I won’t be e-mailing her a link.
Oh, oh, oh, and also I’m grateful, especially grateful, for being able to watch the first disc of the first season of Glee from Netflix with my wife…and, in honor of that, here’s a little Glee for you:
If you haven’t seen it yet, it is a must-see. As my alter ego said earlier today, it is FAB-U-LOUS. He’s right.
So looking back at this week, through the prism of the Sleeping with Bread meme, I ask myself and ask you to ask yourself:
For what am I/are you most grateful this past week?
For what am I/are you least grateful this past week?
For what am I most grateful this past week?
1. Body: Continuing with giving up candy bars for Lenten, even after being sorely tempted (yea, sorely tempted) by peanut butter eggs at counters at stores. I love peanut butter and chocolate.
2. Mind: Starting to read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and finishing Smoke: The Disappearing Novel by Donald E. Westlake and Tears of The Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith, the second in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.
3. Soul: Putting in an application to be a volunteer at our local senior center. I had seen an item in our church bulletin requesting volunteers for several months, but thought that it had been kept in by mistake. Finally, this past week, I called and filled out an application yesterday. Mostly, it involves helping out with lunches at the center a few days a week.
For what am I least grateful this past week?
1. Body: Still struggling with getting up earlier each morning so I have more time to run/walk, but on the positive side, I have stopped playing a few Facebook games that keep me up at night. So that ought to see fruit here in the near future.
2. Mind: Still struggling with selecting assignments at a freelance writing site. Perhaps it’s that the site gives you topics on which to write, which seems to limit my creativity. I like to think that’s what it is. It’s also that the site pays a minimal amount for most articles and I don’t know if I can sell myself that cheap. On the flip side, I’m earning nothing extra otherwise and we need the extra income from what little I make as a newspaper correspondent and a library worker. Perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere, but where?
3. Soul: Missing a couple of days of praying the Liturgy of the Hours, especially Morning and especially during this Holy Week.
So for what are you most grateful and least grateful this week?
This is how I felt after this past week:
But this is what I will continue to do:
Maybe it’s only appropriate with it being Holy Week.
So looking back at this week, through the prism of the Sleeping with Bread meme, I ask myself and ask you to ask yourself:
For what am I/are you most grateful this past week?
For what am I/are you least grateful this past week?
For what am I most grateful this past week?
1. Body: Losing three pounds from early last week to early this week, with WeightWatchers and walking at least three times a week.
2. Mind: Starting to read The Complete Sherlock Holmes: 4 Novels and 56 stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
3. Soul: This may seem trivial, but being able to eat a big burger for lunch today on one of the Fridays of Lent, thanks to St. Joseph. My alter ego, Unfinished Rambler, even suggested earlier how big of a burger I could eat. While it wasn’t that big, it was big. Normally during Lent, Catholics fast from meat during the Fridays of Lent, except for solemnities, of which today’s Feast of St. Joseph was. To be honest, I’m getting sick of Veggie Delite subs at Subway (blech) for lunch on the Fridays of Lent.
For what am I least grateful this past week?
1. Body: Not walking an hour every other day as I had challenged myself (and done) last week. I missed Wednesday and today I didn’t eat that great, no, not just the burger, but also a Philly cheesesteak wrap for dinner, even though I walked to and from work at the library.
2. Mind: Losing focus and motivation again on the job front, as I faltered again and didn’t pick up and/or finish any new assignments from a freelance writing site of which I am a member. The articles are small and aren’t on subjects that interest me, no matter how hard I look. Maybe I need to look to another site, or just suck it up and do the little I can for the little pay I get.
3. Soul: Missing Mass to start off the week.
Yet I am still grateful, and I encourage you to be grateful too:
The badge above is one of three new badges I’m using for my themed days, with the first one introduced Monday for Motivation Monday, the second one introduced Wednesday for Midweek Review, and the last one introduced today for Flashback Friday. This one is using a photo that my wife took.
So looking back at this week, through the prism of the Sleeping with Bread meme, I ask myself and ask you to ask yourself:
