Gratitude Journal

A bad inverter made it stay in “golf cart” mode. They fixed it under warranty (yay!!) and gave us a rental car in the meantime. That rental really made me appreciate the features of our car.

Driving to the store, I saw it laying on the opposite side of the road… a long, wide dry palm frond, and I hoped I would remember to stop and pick it up on the way back. I did! I gave it to Rachel for her to paint on.

It’s a thumb piano, and it’s really neat. It’s the same idea as a music box (metal tines) that you play with your thumbs. It has two octaves so I’ll be able to play a wide range of songs. So excited to learn some using tabs. The first thing I tried to play was “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd.

Rachel, Lance and I are doing the 21 day meditation program for “Miraculous Relationships.” I learned some stuff with the first try, so hopefully this time will go better.

It rained hard today, and not a drop of water came in the door track. Yippee!!

Scott is clearing the bushes from the side of his yard, and right before I started sawing on one of them, I looked up and noticed a dove sitting on a nest. It’s amazing that she stayed while we were clearing all around her. So, we left that bush and the one next to it. Hopefully she’ll still be able to raise her family there.

Trav made the most delicious hamburgers. We added mushroooms, provolone, and bacon on our favorite potato buns. Mmmm mmm! It made me think of the burgers at the Cherry Lounge in Jamestown… one of our favorite places to go after work on Friday. It was right downstairs and they would often have the perfect crisp on the buns.

Spelunking was the adventure today, and we picked up a bag full of trash along the way… lots of beer cans and water bottles. Also grateful there was so much less garbage than last time we went there, which is good because then we get to pick up all the little stuff, like cigarette butts and bottle caps. It was a beautiful day and we had a really good time “forest bathing.”

It’s this type of project that really gets me in the groove.

One of the things I’ve learned through meditation is to “set the intention” for my day, first thing in the morning. I find it gives me a better frame of mind throughout the day. Today’s intention is to “be present” and to stay in the moment, so I can fully experience the company of others.

After a frustrating morning, my day is going better after going out to find birds to count for the “Global Big Day” event. I didn’t find too many, but it was nice to sit in the sun for a while.

At dusk, we were in the front yard chatting with Scott, when we heard chittering in the pine trees. When we looked, we saw them running around the tree trunks and sailing from tree to tree.

We spied a Clapper Rail wading along the shoreline, probing for food among the mangroves.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked the double-doors. But now I do, because we have it arranged well, and we can see everything in the fridge, which will help us use the things in there instead of having them get pushed to the back and going bad. Woohoo!

After encountering mass with the 25 foot snake and then having the entire house stopped up, we bought a 50 foot snake to try more cleaning. We ran the new snake, then put the hose up the outside access port and turned on the water full blast, and out came all this stuff in a mad rush. All seems to be well again after taking a shower and doing a load of wet towels, which came from the toilet seal getting broken when we tried to plunge the blockage. Whew! What a day.

When we got under the sink to snake the drain, we found standing water, and determined it was coming from the seal around the drain. So we upgraded to nice stainless steel instead of plastic. Yay!! Grateful to Rachel as well, for providing plumber’s putty.

We’re doing a 21 day meditation program for “Miraculous Relationships.”

The weather has been so nice!