Today is a Gift

This morning I went for my bloodwork to see what the crestor has been doing to my homocysteine levels, etc.  Posted on the cubicle of the intake person was a post it note that said, "Each day is a gift, not a given right.  Let go of anger and fear and live."  I rather liked it.

I haven't been angry, but I have been a little fearful.  They announced at Mr. Darcy's workplace that paycuts are going to be given.  At some point this week, each employee will sit down with a higher up and they will "discuss" the amount of the paycut.  We are luckier than most in that we're sort of frugal.  We have money saved in the bank for a rainy day, we save for the girls' college and for our retirement.  We are not into cars, so we have one car that is completely paid off and the mini-van that we got out of necessity and still have payments on.  We tend to keep our cars for at least 10 years at a time.  We don't like the idea of debt and so we try not to buy anything we can't pay for in a given month.  Yet, I worry about how much this paycut will be and whether this will mean that I will have to clean my own house every 3 weeks (horrors, I know, but it's something I don't have much time to do - I've been kind of spoiled on that front since the girls have been in our lives), whether Mr. Darcy will have to give up the lawn service (again horrors, I know, but the man has little time to do it and my allergies prevent me from being able to do it), whether we'll have to eliminate eating out 100% (we've knocked it down to once a week), whether we should buy a deep freeze so we can buy our meat and other things in bulk to save, whether we have to not sign the girls up for sports (again horrors, they are 3 after all), whether we need to eliminate our monthly date night.

And then I volunteer at Canstruction, deconstructing the artwork made of canned food to benefit the local food bank.  I explain to Ladybug when I leave and she doesn't want me to go, that I'm going to do my part to help people who can't afford to go to the grocery store to buy food and are hungry.  I think about the program that the food bank has that gives kids backpacks filled with food for the weekends because these kids were coming to school on Mondays with headaches and tiredness because their parents can't afford enough food for them to eat enough on the weekends.  And I realize that not only do I have it very good, but that I'm a spoiled brat worrying about losing my fun stuff when it could be so much worse.

So that post it note really spoke to me today.  And I went for a run to work it out in my mind.  Coach said to do an easy run for 30 minutes but to stop if my calf hurt.  It hurt about 15 minutes into it and I didn't want to stop.  I walked for a bit and then tried to run for a bit, but it would hurt again after about 1 minute to 1:30 after I started running again.  But it didn't hurt when I walked, so I walked.  It dawned on me that I was lucky to be able to walk or even run.

Life is good and I will stop living in fear about money or anything else.  And I'm going to do my best to stop being a spoiled brat and live like every day is a gift.  Not just today.

This weekend was a gift.  We had a great time with Angelfish and Ladybug.  The local pumpkin patch was great.  It had pony rides (Angelfish LOVED it and grinned ear to ear as she rode the pony.  She even let go with one hand so she could pet the pony while she was riding and the instructor had to tell her to stop and hold on with both hands.  Ladybug liked it, but not nearly as much as Angelfish.), a hay ride where the girls got to feed the horses, bunnies and a goat to pet, and pumpkins to pick.  It was a lot of fun.  We also made construction paper bats that we put out on the front porch.  Somewhere we didn't get around to carving the pumpkins, but hopefully we'll get to that tonight!