Advent 8

To be honest, I've done better than I thought I would. Eight consecutive days of blogging. Yay, me. 

Haha. Of course these are pretty crappy posts. 

I'm not particularly proud of any of them. 

Today's blog prompt buffet includes the following selection:

1. This year I was good at ____

2. A place that's more enjoyable in the winter than summer ...

3. The people you spent the most time with this year (and what you did.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Might as well answer them all:

1. This year I got better at asking for help. I was heavily, pathetically, totally reliant on the kindness of kids and friends after my hip replacement surgery. It's hard to ask someone to lift your dead leg onto an ottoman. Or fill up the ice machine with more frozen bottles of water. Or keep your plants alive. (GAHHH, so many plants...) I am so grateful for all the kind responses to my neediness. 

That said, I'm very happy to be back to being my ol'  (semi) self-sufficient self. 

2. There is no place that is more enjoyable in the winter than the summer. 

3. The person I spent the most time hanging out with this year, cumulatively, (once a week for 3 - 5 hours) (= 200 hours, annually give 'r take) (plus 200 hours to get to and from her place) is my mom. We spend 100% of our time together talking. (But we also eat and sometimes shop). You know, typical mother-daughter stuff. 

She'll be 86 in a couple weeks. 

I spend more time with her than any other person.

There's a famous quote by Jim Rohn, "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with" ... (meaning, your habits, mindset and success mirror that of your inner circle's). If this is true, you should choose your friends, co-workers, and how you spend your days, wisely, because someday you'll be just like them. 

This "truth" (?) (quote) has crossed my mind often. When you're married, and live in a house with your children, and have a fulltime job; your five people are easy to identify. (Pssst, They're your immediate family and the co-workers you spend 40+ hours a week with.) Simply by their proximity they are your five. They 'rub' off on you, so to speak. Your similarities can include what you believe, how you play, how you spend your money, the type of foods you eat, your ancestry, and so on. When you're single, live alone, are not working, and have very independent sons whom you see every other month for dinner... (Me. I'm talking about me), then your 5 are harder to identify, and they are decidedly more intentional. 

We all have our own reputations... (Our character, our strengths, our weaknesses, our positive qualities, our offerings to society, what we bring to the table in friendships, our 'brands'), and without sounding crass, we're always evaluating and being evaluated. Who is choosing to spend time with me? Who am I inviting into my life? 

Three Things I'm Thankful For:

1. A cozy place to live when the weather is frightful. 

2. A God who listens when I go on and on about the same 'ol crap. 

3. A gym that is mostly empty one hour before closing time. 

Thanks for dropping by,

xo