This Week in Gratitude: Vacation Anticipation, Saying Yes, and Saying No

1. Weifang and I have booked tickets and a hotel room for our MUCH overdue vacation in Las Vegas in a few weeks! We haven’t been on a long vacation that didn’t involve seeing friends or family (and those are both great but they aren’t really vacations) since we got married. Plus, the more research we do the more really fun things appear in a city that most people just write off as full of casinos and neon. Needless to say we are very excited!
2. I have a packed weekend this week: Today is dinner with a good friend and her roommates, tomorrow I have a baby shower in the morning and a movie day with two friends in the afternoon. Weifang will be playing pool with one of his friends as well. The baby shower I was obviously going to go to but the other plans came up over the past week and usually I am not sure if I want to go or if Weifang wants to go or if he would mind (he never does but yay anxiety!) so I waffle and I hate it even though my friends are used to making plans last minute anyway. So it felt good to say “Yes!” and the following weekend I can just relax with my husband 🙂
3. I got rid of a subscription to a class that I thought at the time might be worth starting but later realized I don’t have the ideas that would make it worthwhile or really the time to focus on it when I have other goals I would rather pursue (plus I could always find a different class anyway). Also, it would allow me to use the money I was spending on the subscription to use for vacations or other things I want to do with Weifang. So I was glad that I finally said no thanks and got rid of it. The only downer was that the person who was in charge of the class tried to guilt trip me into taking this off of my plate by saying we had an “agreement” (which we don’t as that’s not how class subscriptions work). So I am also glad I got rid of it since if he can’t respect my choices when I decide that something isn’t right for me right now that is not someone I want to work with anyway.

This Week in Gratitude: Movie Audiences, Podcasts, and Autumn Weather

Sorry everyone! Definitely dropped the ball on getting this out on Tuesday. But that gave me a bigger volume of gratitude to draw from so without further ado:

1. Don’t get me wrong, people at the movies can be annoying. They whisper, kick seats, use their phones, you name it. But the reason I like going to movies, particularly when movies are just out, is catching that excitement that we all feel when we can sit down to enjoy a movie for a few hours. I’ve noticed this especially at premieres but it can even happen in our smaller theater for a good but not Marvel-esque blockbuster. My husband and I saw The Foreigner last night and it was quite good. But my favorite part was our aisle mates getting super excited whenever Jackie Chan took out bad guys with nothing but his wits and every day household objects. If that outwardly expressed glee isn’t your favorite part of the movie experience you are missing out because it makes it that much more fun.
2. I LOVE learning new things. And I love listening to people. So I was made to be a podcast listener. I just discovered a new (to me) podcast this week that is teaching me all kinds of things and making Excel spreadsheets go much faster: Stuff You Should Know. If you want to learn about a plethora of topics with two great hosts this podcast is for you. Here are other podcasts that I highly recommend: Rough Translation; Constitutional (and the predecessor Presidential); You Must Remember This; Hidden Brain; Invisibilia; Happier with Gretchen Rubin; TED Radio Hour; Tiny Leaps, Big Changes.
3. Yay, Fall is here! Now I can cuddle with my husband under our new (and very fast) electric blanket and my cat sits on my lap at every available opportunity. Not to mention the beautiful transitions in nature, new opportunities to score some comfy sweaters, and getting closer to my favorite time of year: Thanksgiving.