Grateful Sunday – April 28, 2019

I’m grateful for keeping up a daily morning meditation routine 18 days in a row, journaling, keeping an evening grateful log, and also a daily recovery log. Many times, I’ll start something like this, but I tend to break the habit because life gets “too busy”. Much of this is to help me keep my focus on getting my finances and life under control, still on track to finalize my divorce so both my wife and I can move on with our lives, and my personal goal of taking Together We Can Heal to the next level. I find that when I put my self-care first, everything else seems to also fall in line.

Lately I’ve been getting back into my music, both at work and at home. I have been doing some hard-inner work, listening to a variety of podcasts, learning the ins and outs about website marketing and how to build an online business, coupled with the deep look at my monetary patterns. I haven’t allowed myself a chance to slow down. This week I blasted music, singing on my drive to and from work. I have a wedding I’m DJing next month and I’m getting excited planning that event. I can’t wait to watch everyone connect and let loose to the sound of the music.

Not only have I listened to more music lately, I’m also grateful for finishing the book Ender’s Game. So nice to read a book for pleasure rather than another self-help book. I have now moved on to The Haunting of Hill House, the book that was the backbone to the Netflix series my younger daughter and I enjoyed.

I’ve had so much fun watching former co-workers move on in their flying careers. I’ve written three letters of recommendations and one just started at my airline this past month. In fact, she just passed her oral exam. I’m so excited for her! I’m grateful the industry has finally turned around with the opportunities for new pilots that I had missed out on 18 years ago.

This week my wife and I had the long overdue and necessary conversation about separation of assets to finalize our divorce. We threw all options on the table and it looks like we’ve come up with one that works for both of us. I’m grateful we still have a good working relationship and are amicable as we move forward. I know this isn’t easy for either of us, however, I’m so grateful that we can put aside our differences and focus on what needs to be done. For the first time I see a ray of hope for a bright future and am finally letting go from the pain of our past.

I’m grateful watching my daughters enjoy the pleasure of entertaining my roommate’s five-month-old little boy. They have so much fun with him and he absolutely adores them. I watch both Mom and Dad relax as the girls give them a breather from the requirements of parenthood. I’m also grateful this new family has agreed to continue living with us when we sell the house and need to find a rental. This will ease much of my financial stress and allow us all to start putting aside money  for the future. In addition, my girls will still have their “baby time”, my roommates will continue to learn the importance of having “mom and dad time”, and we all can challenge one another to continue striving towards the future goals we have for our individual families.

I’m grateful that I took the extremely hard step (for me that is) and finalized my first budget for May. I’m using both Every Dollar app by Dave Ramsey and the Quicken app. I realize that entering data twice will be more time consuming, however, I see positives and negatives with both apps. I’ve used Quicken for over 20 years and yet I’ve never been able to do and maintain a budget. My thought is, doing it on both will get me budgeting to build a new habit. Mindful Spending is what I need to constantly remind myself. The one thing moving forward that I’m more prepared for is that I expect to screw up. When it comes to budgeting, I’ve been paralyzed by fear because I don’t want to make a mistake. Today, I want to make a mistake, because that’s the only way I’m going to learn. The next few months will all be a learning curve with me adjusting as I go. I’m grateful for this change in thinking.

I’m grateful my girls got to enjoy time with their friends at the end of the week. Friendship is so important, especially having one on one time with them outside of school. I’m grateful my daughters have close friends they can be open, vulnerable, and have fun with. This is something that is incredibly important for us in life.

Childhood Grateful

I’m grateful for how my parents opened me up to musicals. Every summer my parents would take my step-sister and I to the Music Circus. This was our family tradition and one of the few times we did something as a family. My mom would always purchase the record (yes, I’m showing my age) a month or so before we went. She’d play it over and over so I could learn the songs prior to seeing the show. I’m grateful she went that extra effort because most music in a musical is a continuation of the story line. Learning the music before made the show that much more meaningful because I was able to sing along. It also helped me follow the dialogue when the music was not playing. Being prepared about what to expect made those experiences much more memorable.

Which reminds me. I need to start listening to Hamilton over and over since that was my Christmas gift to my family. The four of us will be seeing Hamilton in May. I know a couple of songs, but not the depth my oldest daughter knows.

I’m also grateful that when my mother passed, my step-father made a Grandma’s fund for the grandchildren. Instead of flowers, which my step-father believed was a waste of money because they were going to die anyway, he asked that everyone put the money they would have spent on flowers into a fund for my girls and my step-sister’s children so they could enjoy musicals that Grandma would no longer be able to take them to. I never thought in my wildest dreams, that musicals and plays would interest both my daughters. I’m grateful that they both have had the opportunity to experience the world of acting; memories that will last them a lifetime.