Gratitude 1.26.2010

You say grace before meals.  All right.  But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.  ~G.K. Chesterton

Spaghetti Dinner at SBMS-  Steven's a teacher/coach at Spring Branch Middle School.  As I've come to learn, working in a kid environment has different rules than working in an adult environment.  Seriously, it's like Steven "fathers" 200 new kids every year.  With that being said, the life Steven represents at work is a censored version of the real thing.  Sheesh!  It annoys the hell out of me, but teachers seem to be fine with it, I guess.  The funniest part about this is when I came into the picture.  You can forget about being "girlfriend" at any work-related function of Steven's.  "The kids can't just have girlfriends coming in and out my life, Claire?!",  "What are you doing?!  Only side hugs at the games...", "Meet me in the back; the kids will all be at the front entrance."  AHHHHHHHHHH!  I swear, you'd think I was dating someone in the C.I.A. with all this sneakiness!  Well, Steven asked me if I wanted to partake in the Spaghetti Dinner hosted by the SBMS Band Boosters.  Wahooooooo!  My debut to society as the chic who's with Coach Reiter!  I asked him if I should wear my old debutante dress just to be official...he said that would not be necessary ;-)  Anyway, we went last night, and had a fine time.  I wonder if Steven caught any flack from the kids for having his lady friend with him last night.....haha!  Anyway, it made me feel good to finally be "set in stone" enough to be debuted to kids and faculty of SBMS as Coach Reiter's girlfriend.

Passion Pit-  Driving home from SBMS last night, I introduced Steven to my current fun band Passion Pit.  Passion Pit is almost like a guilty pleasure for me, as they have a very electro/trance/80's-esque kind of sound.....aka: perfect running music!  I don't know if Steven's a Passion Pit fan, yet, but we sure had fun dancing in the car to them the whole way home.  It's fun being goofy with your loved ones.

Good Night's Sleep- South texas is plagued with the annual Mountain Cedar allergy, and I am one of the unfortunate many who are allergic to it...big time.  I've been overdosing on antihistamines day and night since Christmas, which, as a side note, is another reason why I think I've been running poorly lately.  Anyway, I finally had a good night's rest last night!  As you know, there's nothing like a good night's rest, and THAT is something to surely be grateful for.

Mountain Cedar Pollen...not cool.

1099 Surprise!-  Yes, tax form 1099's are NOT exciting, or what I'm particularly grateful for right now, but there's a catch to this story.  The past couple of days have been really slow at work.  Unlike a lot of people, I'm really good about not procrastinating, and have not had a tax prep. freak-out at work like a lot of folks have.  While I was contemplating suicide due to intense boredom at work, I discovered I had forgotten to write a 1099 to a recipient....WOOHOO!  SOMETHING TO DO!  I've never been so pumped to fill out a tax form and have issues with Quickbooks which, by the way, took up a solid hour of time consumption!  By the time I finished, it was time to leave for the day :-)