Gratitude and attitude

It’s 5 a.m. and, after tossing and turning for about an hour, I gave up trying to get back to sleep. I take a ½ a sleeping pill every night (I call them my ‘happy pills’ and yes, I’m probably addicted) but every once in a while I wake up really early. I guess this is just one of those times.

When I can’t sleep it’s usually because my brain is filled with ‘monkey chatter’: my to-do list, what book I want to read next, things I want to write about on my blog, etc.

Maybe this morning it’s because I’m going for a CT scan of my lungs at 8:20. I’ve had a cough for 2 months and can’t seem to shake it. I’m hoping that it’s just a nasty lingering cough from the cold I had at Christmas, or maybe the plague, but at 4 a.m., it can mess with your head.

One of the things that popped into my monkey brain in the wee hours was that I haven’t been posting my “What I’m grateful for today” footnote. So as a sort of catch-up, here’s an expanded list:

What I’m grateful for today (i.e. things I like): My new old parquet floor, the TV shows The Office and Modern Family, my bed-hog dog, fresh ‘powder’ (is it still called ‘powder’ if you only ski the bunny hills?), PC products (I have a platonic crush on Galen Weston), Jockey underwear, Toonie Tuesdays at the Rainbow cinema, $20 student massages, Value Village, Dollarama (it sounds like I’m cheap, but I just like a good bargain), frozen blueberries (although I do prefer fresh in season), my electric blanket, Indian food, my ‘sisters-of-the-heart’ (you know who you are) who make non-onion dishes just for me at our potlucks (am I spoiled or what?), my cozy TV room, the long phone chat I had with Adam yesterday about the possibility of us going on a trip together, and using brackets for related thoughts that don’t really fit in the sentence (see what I mean?).

Just for balance, here’s the flip side.

Things I’m not grateful for today (i.e. things I ‘dislike’): onions, painting stipple ceilings (and just stipple ceilings in general), clothes that are too tight, wall-to-wall carpet, beige baseboards and door trim, making small talk, carpel tunnel syndrome, people who don’t pick up after their dogs, when someone says “Hold on a minute, I have another call”, trying on bathing suits, chemo brain (what day is this again?), bad customer service, disposable vacuums (more on that at a later date), stupid movies (e.g. The Informant), low rise jeans, buying a new car, sappy chain emails, paying bank fees or interest, my messy car, and cancer (not necessarily in that order).