Good things V

I can't quite believe I'm already on round 5...time passes quickly in Feli-Land right now...
But there have been some *really* good things this week!

*Meeting my sister three times in a row! (Coffee on Thursday, party on Friday, crazy Starcraft-LAN-Party on Saturday)
*Having quite the action-packed weekend in contrast to our usual "Stay at home and be exceedingly lazy"-routine (party on Friday, crazy Starcraft-LAN-Party on Saturday, Brunch Sunday lunch, family birthday affair Sunday afternoon)
*Being late for said brunch because we thought Daylight Savings Time ended this weekend (actually, next week. Whoops.) and our friends being really amazingly cool about it (and then sitting and laughing with us for 3 hours straight)
*Two scarves from my to do list finished
*Sunshine and fallen leaves and falling leaves and some of the best that autumn has to offer
*A professor that I only ever took one lecture with remembering my name (while others that I took several seminars with have continually forgotten that I even study what I study...or that I have already graduated and am now a PhD student...or...*sighs*)
*I SO love my cultural studies lecture, it's beyond belief (random Elvis Costello reference)
*Lending my new Apocalyptica CD to my sister, and borrowing three older ones from her in return. Score! :D
*Headphone Commute music mixes. I admit that this took me by surprise, but these were extremely helpful since I discovered them last weekend. Extremely helpful. (I mostly listened to 'Modern Classical' and 'Oceanica', but 'Dream Scores' is also quite nice, as are some of the others, though I haven't by far listened to them all.)
*Girls Night on Wednesday, with so much delicious food, yum...I mean, chocolate cake with melty chocolate center, served with what I assume was walnut (or some nut at least) ice cream? Arrnomnomnom.
*Not getting ill. Honestly. I thought I was done for once again when Monday rolled in, but I just slept an impossible amount of time, and was saved. Hah!
*One of my secret project thingies arriving. Yay! More on that later.
*A fictional character wearing a t-shirt with a print reading "Come to the dork side"
*Sitting in the sun, reading uni stuff, leaves rustling around me
*Feeling less tired. Still occasional bouts of inner exhaustion, but less so, I think.
*Only one more week until Nano!
*And gratuitous Monday morning good thing: Raining outside, ginger and lemon tea inside!

Good list, that. :)

Good Things III

A little late, but here it is:

*Taking walks both Saturday and Sunday, just as the sun is setting
*Cheshire Cat moon
*Cultural Studies lectures. YES!
*Finally feeling somewhat like a proper PhD student, with a plan.
*Seeing so many pretty things, and not spending money on them
*Lots of movies, again (The Dark Knight, Strings, some other stuff)
*Strings (Yes, it deserves a spot of its own. Stunning. Beautiful. Haunting. I will never forget this. For some weird reason, it reminded me a little of The Dark Crystal. )
*Knitting, and reading, and getting things done

A shorter list, but there's some really important, weighty points in there which made life noticably better. :)

Good things list II

Let's see what this week has offered:

Getting crazy nicknames at work while my colleagues were sick/on holiday (stuff like 'saviour' etc were used, weird, but funny, too)
Mentioning I had a sore throat and a colleague walking up to me 2 minutes later, offering me her three tea packages to choose from
Buying lots and lots and loads of yarn and not feeling guilty about it
Drinking a drink called 'Julia', which, in combination with a healthy dose of laughing, made abovementioned sore throat (plus extra headache) go away for at least one full workday.
Meeting old friends, and new friendly people
Laughing a lot. Like, really a lot.
Messing around with beads, and thus creating a birthday gift that made someone happy
Receiving Postcrossing postcards, cute, funny, crazy, amazing.
The more recent version of The Incredible Hulk movie (watched just now), which is so much better than the first attempt.
Skype phone calls
Joanna Newsom
Finding great uni courses to attend, yay.
Family dinners, helping out in the kitchen - yes, that was a good thing, really!
My cousins, and how they're slowly growing up...they're entering an exciting phase of their life now (they're 11).*
Knitting colourful things.
Driving through the countryside with my new Apocalyptica CD on
Yummy food, and then a nap afterwards
Being thankful, even if not everything is well and good. Being thankful for what is - is good enough.

*I know, it's going to be just as exciting for their parents. ;)

Good things

Sometime in the past week I read this here, and thought, well, interesting - that does sound a lot like concepts I heard of before (visualisation, writing lists of what you're thankful for every day etc), just replacing the universe at large with the internet (or so it seems at first glance).
Essentially, it's not much different though...defining clearly what you like, what you want, and putting it on 'paper'. Writing things down, and thus making a clear choice, is very often the core exercise of these things, it seems.
Well. Sometimes earlier this year I bought myself a beautiful notebook (because I love beautiful notebooks, and an excuse to buy a new beautiful notebook is beautiful in itself), and tried to write, for every day, one page of positive affirmations for the day in the morning, and one page of things I was grateful for that day in the evening. I kept that up for maybe two weeks, then added it to the row of beautiful notebooks bought for beautiful reasons, 1/50 filled with beautiful things, sitting on my shelf. Hm.
I feel like this is a waste of both beautiful notebooks and beautiful ideas.
From today on, I'll be doing something different. I will collect a weekly post, filled with things I was grateful for that week - I can keep track of them by simply adding things to a draft version of the post. At the end of every week, I'll have a beautiful summary of all the good things that happened during the past seven days, and, who knows, by posting this, maybe more good things in the future.

I only started this post on Thursday, but here are the good things I remember best:

*The whole of Monday afternoon/evening - receiving my Caterpillar mug, talking for ages, shooting crazy pictures, being high on caffeine (in the best possible way)
*The amazing weather we've been having - September is my favourite month of the year. The skies are clear and bright bright blue, there is sun, it's neither too hot or too cold, a slight breeze is easily found when you need one, and I don't feel silly wearing scarves anymore. ;)
(Oh, and I can knit again. Even during the day.)
*Taking a deep breath and meeting with friends after all the stress I put myself in doing my freelance work for friends and job-people.
*Seeing my sister again after her month-long travels, and helping her and her boyfriend move in together. I am grateful for her gratefulness. She was sooo happy and excited. As was he. Teheee. :)
*Starting on my cultural studies reading while sitting in the late afternoon park, with couples and relaxed people playing games everywhere around me.
*Finishing some things, like blocking two scarves which have been lying around for the whole of summer.
*Talking about some more serious things than daily routine, DSA or whatever with my boyfriend...sometimes it's hard to get to that level when we hardly see each other, but I managed to provoke ourselves into doing it. ;) (
Nothing bad, no 'serious' talk of whatever, just getting below that everyday surface level...)
*Gaining more and more confidence concerning my half-formed ideas of seriously going freelance.
*Winning cards for a concert, attending that concert with my boyfriend, and having a blast - goosebumps and hilarity so close together. Loved it.
*Going out in my new miniskirt, and getting compliments. Hm.
*Loads of new yarn!
*Starting a new pattern, which is intriguing and beautiful.
*Yarn and bead and all other kinds of craft stores.
*Zelda
*Cuddling in the dark
*Sleeping in
*Watching midday comedy after waking from aforementioned long long sleep
*Delicious lunch, delicious dinner
*Beautiful sunsets

I think that's quite a nice list. :)
More of that, please. ;)