gratitude

What Went Well
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What Went Well

When I began this blog in 2015, one of my regular topics was “What Went Well” — an exercise in reflection, mindfulness, and gratitude. I don’t write those posts very often any more, but I try to feel grateful every day for the blessings in my life. And as today is Thanksgiving, the timing seems right!

While I’m at it, thank YOU, dear readers, for joining me in my musings! I’m grateful to have found such an interesting, kind group of people with whom to share some of my interests!

So, 2021. What a year — but better than 2020, for sure. 2020 ended on the hopeful note of successful vaccines, and 2021 brought our own eligibility to get vaccinated, which was a huge relief. All three of our young adult children followed in quick succession — also a huge relief, having nursed one daughter through COVID in 2020. She recovered quickly and well, but she was very sick for several days and that was scary. Our two daughters, who had moved home during lockdown, both started new jobs this year and moved out again, to share residences with roommates who were already friends of theirs. Their jobs are going well and they love living with friends! We love having them nearby.

All three kids faced real challenges from mid-2020 to mid-2021, including loss of jobs, loss of experiences like graduations and trips, loss of relationships/friendships. I’m proud of how they tapped into their own resilience and persistence to overcome those challenges, and asked for help bravely when they needed it; and I feel so thankful for their present happiness and good health. My dear husband finally got his long-awaited knee replacement, and he is making a great recovery. Progress is slow but steady, and he’s already looking forward to being able to do more with his rebuilt knee. Our house, which suffered a major plumbing disaster late last year resulting in major repairs for most of 2021, is back in good order — repaired, replastered, repainted. We are slowly moving furniture back into rooms, and even getting new curtains. We were able to use our dining room again for Thanksgiving today!

2021 started out with ongoing stress from 2020, but brought the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks this summer with my beloved father-in-law. On our drives north and then back south, we were able to visit some “bucket-list” destinations like Gettysburg and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It also brought several weddings, two of which had been delayed from 2020, including those of a dear niece and dear nephew. Another niece has just announced her engagement to her longtime, very nice boyfriend. It’s wonderful to be able to see all the young people in our extended family thriving as they truly enter adulthood.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Thank you for reading this; I hope 2021 has brought you blessings, and I hope 2022 will too. I appreciate your presence here.

Thankful
Thankful
Perfume Chat Room, April 9
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Perfume Chat Room, April 9

Welcome to the weekly Perfume Chat Room, perfumistas! I envision this chat room as a weekly drop-in spot online, where readers may ask questions, suggest fragrances, tell others their SOTD, comment on new releases or old favorites, and respond to each other. The perennial theme is fragrance, but we can interpret that broadly. This is meant to be a kind space, so please try not to give or take offense, and let’s all agree to disagree when opinions differ. In fragrance as in life, your mileage may vary! YMMV.

Today is Friday, April 9, and I’ve had a lovely week, starting with Easter. I took this week off from work, to rest up before the final push toward the end of the semester and final exams (I work all summer, too, but it’s less hectic once the students have left). Usually I would have had a week off for a university spring break in March, but that was canceled this year, in an attempt to reduce travel back and forth from the campus and thus spreading infection.

The weather has been beautiful, including Easter Sunday, and we were able to attend church in person, outside in the courtyard. The volunteers who handle everything from set-up to flowers outdid themselves, and everything was just beautiful. I’ve spent most of this week gardening, including in my new raised-bed vegetable garden, so things look tidier than usual!

Easter flowers

We’re also making real progress on putting our house back together — the two semi-demolished bathrooms now have floors and tiles again, and most of the plumbing fixtures are back in place. The shower in one bathroom is mostly rebuilt. Electrical work has been done to replace lighting in that bathroom too, though the fixtures have to wait until all the plaster and paint have been redone. The living room and dining room still look like scenes of demolition, with great gaping holes in the ceilings and one wall, but those will be handled as part of one massive re-plastering. I can’t wait to have my house back, after all these months!

Meanwhile, the fragrant flowers blooming in my garden include: the first roses; Korean lilacs; late daffodils; violets; lilies of the valley. The large pots of herbs I planted last year are sending up new growth, including the pretty silver-leaved lavenders. Since I’m at home all day to take proper care of them, I’ve started quite a few seeds, and I’m excited to see how they do. I also have pots of forced hyacinths and Easter lilies in the house, which I’ll plant out when they start to fade.

How was your week? What’s in bloom near you? Do you have any favorite fragrances with notes from the flowers in my garden, or yours?

What Went Well Wednesday
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What Went Well Wednesday

I only do this occasionally now, but for a while on this blog I had a regular feature called What Went Well Wednesday. It was based on a gratitude practice also called Three Blessings, in which one lists three blessings, or three things that went well, and sometimes WHY they went well. The idea is to refocus one’s attention on what is going well in life and how that happened, including one’s own agency.

Tonight is Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving here in the US, so I’m counting my blessings.

  1. I am so thankful for my husband and three children, who are all happy, nice, healthy people; and I’m thankful that my children get along so well that they are currently out, just them, having a “sibling bonding” dinner and movie together. Because they are good people making good choices, becoming young adults who make us so proud!
  2. I am thankful for the rest of our extended families: siblings, siblings-in-law, nephews, nieces, and one elderly father-in-law, who is the only surviving parent of the original four parents of myself and my husband. Because they are also good people, doing good things in the world, living their best lives as best they can, living conscientiously in the world.
  3. I am thankful for the daily blessings of good health, a loving spouse, a pretty home, a garden to enjoy, a temperate climate, an interesting and well-paid job (even with its many challenges), the opportunities to keep learning, and the privilege and safety that come with being an American citizen.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it, and blessings to all of you who don’t. I’m also thankful for all of you who do me the honor of reading this blog and offering your own thoughts here. What makes you thankful?

What Went Well in 2017
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What Went Well in 2017

“What Went Well” is a gratitude exercise also known as “Three Blessings.” The idea is that on a regular basis, daily or weekly, one lists three things that went well, and why. (Adding “why” allows one to pinpoint times when acts of one’s own or others contributed to what went well). When I started this blog, while recovering from a broken bone, and during a very stressful period at work, I posted my three blessings weekly, on “What Went Well Wednesday.” I still pause regularly to count my blessings, but I no longer post them. However, a reader recently suggested that I do so again, so here is the year-end wrap-up of “what went well” in 2017! Please feel free to chime in with your own!

  1. I was able to avert a dreaded change in my workplace, that would have had me report to a colleague who has been undermining me for several years, thereby putting my job at risk. This was possible because a new chief executive arrived before that change was made, who had known me, my good work, and excellent reputation for many years — and because I mustered the courage to speak to him candidly about it, so he reversed the plan of the outgoing leadership. My work life now feels less stressful and insecure than it has for several years.
  2. In the face of loss, this year’s deaths of my mother and my husband’s, our extended  families were drawn together and supported each other better than might have been expected. Because we made the effort to recognize each adult child’s different experience and grief, and responded to each other with gentleness and empathy.
  3. Our three children continue to delight us with their growth, resilience, gifts, and love. Because all three have faced various challenges endemic to adolescence and young adulthood with grace, humor, kindness, and perseverance.

I don’t normally post much or speak much about faith, because that is such an individual matter for every person: whether or not one has faith, and how one chooses to honor or express it. In the Lord’s house, there are many mansions. I am also frankly horrified at the misuse of religion to justify the unjustifiable, such as cruelty to others and a domineering will to power regardless of others’ beliefs. It often seems that those who are most outspoken about their own religion are most intolerant of others’, and I want no part of that. However, I pause now to note that my own faith (progressive mainstream Protestant Christian) and our family’s worship community, filled as it is with kind, intelligent, thoughtful, decent people, who try to make the world a better and more beautiful, charitable place, have been especially important to me this year. I take comfort in knowing that our mothers’ long illnesses are over, and that they have been restored to their best essence. So I’ll wrap up my year-end three blessings with my favorite prayer, from the end of each Sunday’s service:

Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

May we all enjoy a peaceful, happy 2018! What went well for you this year?

The Scent of Gratitude
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The Scent of Gratitude

by Linda Ryan Now and then there comes a moment when time seems to stop, even for the merest fraction of a second, and in that fraction of a second something becomes so clear that it’s almost heartbreaking. It happened to me the other morning when I went to feed the outside cats. It…

via Speaking to the Soul: The Scent of Gratitude — Episcopal Cafe

I loved this reflection on scents and being thankful for them. As we’ve just passed Easter, I want to add how thankful I am for the abundance of flowers that my fellow parishioners provide every year to celebrate it, and the remarkable skill and love with which they arrange thousands of fragrant lilies, roses, hydrangeas, tulips and flowering branches. To be surrounded by so many gifts is indeed cause for thanks!

What Went Well: Thankful
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What Went Well: Thankful

It has been a while since I posted my weekly “three blessings” on What Went Well Wednesday, but I feel the need to do so in light of the tragedy in Orlando last weekend. It is so easy to feel overwhelmed by the evil and anger that prompt such an act. But it is better to remember to light one’s candles in the dark. My three blessings this week:

  1. I go to an amazing church that rallied quickly to hold a beautiful service of remembrance on Monday night, to mourn and honor the victims in Orlando. And it was straight clergy who did that, understanding that our LGBT congregants were so grief-stricken that they needed our community’s love and support.
  2. At that service, our extraordinary Bishop spoke eloquently, lovingly, passionately, inclusively, about how evil is real but God is much, much more real.
  3. I have been reaching out to students and getting very appreciative responses, which reminds me of what I enjoy about my work.

Do you have “three blessings” to ponder in this week of sadness?

May Muguet Marathon: Mother’s Day
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May Muguet Marathon: Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate it! Just as May is the month for May Day and muguet, it is also the month when we recognize and appreciate mothers. So today, instead of commenting on a specific fragrance, I’d like to share a bit of Lily-of-the-Valley folklore. Apparently, one of its other names is “Our Lady’s Tears”, or “Mary’s Tears”. According to one website: “It was said that when Mary wept at the foot of the Cross, her tears fell to the ground and turned into the tiny fragrant blossoms of this early spring plant. In England it had the name “Our Lady’s Tears” because when viewed from a distance the white flowerets gave the appearance of teardrops falling.” Continue reading →

What Went Well
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What Went Well

What went well this week?

  1. My husband and I went to see the most glorious display of daffodils — literally millions of them in full bloom, at a place called Gibbs Gardens. Because I told him a while ago that I’d like to do that, to give him time to process the idea, and because when I reminded him, he sweetly said right away, “Let’s go!”. The flowers were spectacular, winding through the woods and up and down hills.
  2. We spent last week at the beach! Because we decided with a lot of travel planned for the summer, we would have a more relaxed spring break. We are so lucky to be within driving distance of beautiful beaches.
  3. We shared the city of Charleston with dear friends, and they loved it. Because, after all, what’s not to love in Charleston?

Have a great week and count your blessings!

What Went Well
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What Went Well

This week’s three blessings:

  1. Vacation with my family! Because I am overdue for a restful break from an often stressful job, and my favorite thing to do is spend time with my family.
  2. Seeing old friends. Because two dear friends from our grad school days came and spent part of this vacation week with us; and no one understands you quite like the friends you made when you were young.
  3. It’s really spring! Which makes me very happy because there are more and more flowers blooming every week, including some of my favorites like daffodils.
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What Went Well

My “three blessings” this week:

  1. My dear husband is coming home tomorrow from a long business trip instead of having to extend it for several more days! Because he misses us, and we miss him.
  2. The daffodils are starting to bloom. Because I took the time to plant a few dozen bulbs of early-blooming varieties to add to the ones already in the garden.
  3. The massive international event my husband helped run this week went very, very well. Because he and his colleagues are creative, experienced and very hardworking.