1. Unexpected three-hour midday break during which I landed five great finds at a nearby Goodwill (jeans, grey dressy pants, and three cute tops for winter)!
2. Impending snowstorm!
3. I wrote the end of my "children's book" that I've been brewing for a few years. Haven't written the beginning or middle, but I'm sure excited about the end!
4. Signed up for Pinterest, which is great, because I really needed another internet time-suck.
Here's a picture of what I hope to wake up to tomorrow...
I almost forgot a huge triumph today! I am a survivor of cyanide poisoning! So here's the story.
I cut open a peach today and the pit split in half. I was THRILLED to be seeing the inside of a peach pit because this is something I've never seen before. To my surprise, there was a nut inside that looked JUST like an almond. (By the way, all of this may very well be common knowledge, but it was new to me, so humor me.) It didn't have much of a smell, so naturally I wanted to taste it to see if it tasted like an almond! I bit in and chewed it up just enough to realize it was atrociously bitter and spit it out. The weird thing was that the after taste was very reminiscent of almond extract. I consulted the internet to learn about this mysterious nut, and it turns out that 1) peaches and almonds are indeed related, and 2) the nut inside of a peach pit has cyanide in it! Yikes! That's the last time I bite into something without knowing what it is!
(Of course, the amount of cyanide in that nut is not enough to hurt me, and the bitterness prevented me from actually ingesting it, but I can't help it if it makes me feel triumphant to think that I survived cyanide poisoning.)
Uh oh! I've discovered Zumba videos on YouTube! They are SUPER fun and I plan to utilize them to the fullest.
I was hoping that my chocolate chip cookies made with applesauce as a butter/oil substitute would be today's triumph, but since I didn't think they weren't that tasty, Zumba YouTube it is!
Here's one to get you started ;-)
I'm pretty sure I'll have that lady's abs in no time, but that's a triumph for another day...
August 5, 2011 was a day of many triumphs! Most importantly, it marked four years since the day Josh and I first (and finally) got together! It's been a magical four years, but the funny thing is, knowing now that we'll be together our whole lives and celebrating so many higher numbers, four seems so puny! But we know that it is a triumph, especially considering the distance that separated us for so much of that time. I hung up a bunch of pictures in the bathroom to surprise Josh and it was a wonder to go through all of them and think of all the fun we've shared :-)
For our anniversary, Josh had not only left flowers to greet me in the morning but had also planned a PERFECT evening. We started with an Irish dinner and drinks at Ri Ra, an Irish pub, enjoying the sounds of a live Irish trad! Without going too far into it, this is more or less how our whole relationship began, so it was perfect ;-) From there we walked down the street to The Palace, a beautiful old Louisville theater, to watch Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 classic, "Harvey."
I can't say enough good things about this experience. The theater was stunning, the movie was everything a good old movie should be, and it was such a rare joy to enjoy that film as part of an audience that is so engaged in the movie. Because of the sound and the layout of the theater, we felt especially connected to the audience. The laughs were so loud, and the audience cheered more than once for Jimmy Stewart, which just made me so happy. Here's a wonderful clip if you are a "Harvey" fan or if you've never seen it.
The movie is so clever and has such a beautiful sentiment behind it, and Friday night sealed it into my Top 10. The Palace is showing Jimmy Stewart movies all summer, so we're planning on seeing "Rear Window" next weekend. What a great Louisville discovery!
The other August 5, 2011 triumph, to go along with the anniversary and the movie experience, was that it was the halfway mark of my first clinical! Things are going great and I feel lucky to be working with such a great staff, even if it's only temporary. I've certainly had ups and downs, but the important thing is that I'm learning, I'm meeting great people, and I'm enjoying the work I do every day.
This weekend's triumph is having a body that does what it's supposed to do, with working parts and systems that generally keep me running with little difficulty. Josh and I stumbled upon a tiny health fair in the parking lot of a church not far from our house, so we decided to check it out. First of all, the people were so kind and for some reason just tickled that we are engaged. For the 20 minutes we were there it felt like we were all great friends. Anyway, Josh and I got our blood pressure and blood sugar taken and then stepped on a magic scale that read your muscle mass, water percentage, bone mass, daily caloric intake, and next year's horoscope. Okay maybe not the last one. The one that really baffled me was the daily caloric intake - how does that scale know that? I was a little skeptical. But all in all, what I'm really writing to report is that Josh and I had healthy to normal levels of all the measures taken! Hooray!
Josh and I both spend a lot of time around people whose levels are all out of whack, whether because they've made poor health choices or simply because they were dealt a raw hand. It seems that almost everyone who comes into the rehab center is Diabetic and on blood pressure medication, so we know we need to be careful to take care of ourselves. But it's nice to know that for now, at 26 and 27, we have healthy levels and our bodies are working the way they are supposed to be working. Not everyone can say that.
In addition, today marks the first day I started taking my Calcium and Vitamin D pills regularly! Josh has been bugging me about this and he's right, I need to take them. So I started today and I intend to make it another healthy habit...With daily reminders from Josh. ;-)
So, it turns out I'm a horrible blogger! I haven't posted anything for several weeks, and although I have excuses, none of them are good ones. So I'm back with renewed commitment to blog my Daily Triumphs as often as I can. To get myself back in the game, I'm going with a recap of some of the past few weeks' triumphs:
1. I've had a couple successful culinary creations! First was a concoction of sauteed spinach, mushrooms, and garlic, garbanzo beans, quinoa, and...goat cheese! The goat cheese definitely put it over the edge and it tasted delicious. The second was something I've been meaning to try for a while and a veggie-crazy co-worker's birthday presented the perfect opportunity: beet chocolate cake! The texture of the cake was absolutely perfect, and although it could have stood a touch more chocolate, I thought it was fantastic. I made a peanut butter frosting that was fluffy and delicious and I was quite proud of the end product :-)
2. Progress at work! Although a handful of my days at fieldwork have felt woefully absent of any triumphs at all, I'm trying to stay true to the spirit of my blog and focus on the successes. And I feel myself making progress. The biggest triumph has been forging a positive relationship with a very difficult patient who never wants to do therapy. I haven't had to cancel any sessions with her which feels like a miracle, so that's definitely a triumph. Also, after a particularly lousy day I initiated a meeting with my supervisor to talk about the things I'd like to work on, and I consider that another good triumph.
3. I remembered to send my sister a present for her 30th birthday! It's in the mail! I am horrible about these kinds of things so I'm pretty impressed with myself on this one.
If I can keep this going, I'd like to make my big brother's awesome twitter idea a reality so other people can start sharing their own daily triumphs, but first I think I need to really get on the ball with the blog. In the meantime, do any of you have a daily triumph you'd like to share with me? I'd love to hear!
I was planning to share that today's Daily Triumph was choosing to have a bowl of fruit instead of a brownie and ice cream for dessert, but after I finished the bowl of fruit I promptly rinsed out the bowl and filled it with the brownie and ice cream I had wanted in the first place. So nevermind. Then I thought maybe I should share a triumph from clinicals, but although I feel that my clinical is going really well so far, I don't think I've done anything really noteworthy yet. I worried that maybe I'd be stuck for today, but then my brother-in-law Rich came to the rescue!
I called up Em and Rich to wish them a Happy 2-Year Anniversary tonight (congratulations!) and Rich shared something with me that made my day - Rich told me that he had his own Daily Triumph the other day! Rich was suffering the aggravation of a troublesome fly who would not leave him alone. After three hours of this torment, Rich finally got the sucker! In the glow of his victory, he thought to himself, "this is my Daily Triumph." Knowing that this thought actually went through Rich's head put a huge grin on my face and ended up being my own Daily Triumph today. Thanks, Rich! And Happy Anniversary to you both :-)
