Counting My Blessings

I originally misspelt that and came out with "Clouting My Blessings", which is not to be recommended.

Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. In fact I'm probably doing that on a fairly permanent basis. 

I feel like I live on the edge of totally not managing, most of the time, but simultaneously manage to just about get away with it. There are consequences, and some times the cracks show. Like how the house is rather untidy, and I only made it to work on time this morning by getting the lovely L to make my lunch and crossing the road without waiting for the green man.

Sorry green man.

I go through phases of thinking I'm getting on ok and maybe even achieving something, and then I go through phases of thinking that I just can't keep up the juggling act. The fact of the matter is that I've probably been living in that grey area in between the two for some time now, and will no doubt keep doing so or some time to come. I can only hope I'm self-aware enough to know when to put one of my proverbial juggling balls down before I drop the whole lot.

In those odd spare moments when I think about what I'm going to blog about each week, I had come quite close to writing something along the lines of this:

Good evening dear Bloggity Buddies,
I'm going a little loopy. Time for a bloggy holiday. See you in a few weeks. 

But then I thought of some other things I might say at the same time, and before you know it there are a couple of hundred words on the screen and we might live to blog another week. And I remembered how some of you occasionally tell me that you read this thing, and that you even glean a measure of enjoyment from doing so. This gives me great pleasure, inflates my ego to dangerous proportions, and I find myself feeling something that the less stone-hearted of you might call "a warm fuzzy feeling". In our house we openly call these "wooshies", in all seriousness, because I am incapable of expressing genuine emotion in proper grown-up language.

A wooshie looks a little like this.

Should I be worried that this looks like a virus?

Sleepies look similar. Their about the same size, but light purple, and like a cube with rounded corners. They gang up and jump on you at exactly half 3 most afternoons.  They are hard to draw, on account of being kinda translucent, and also imaginary.

So, there I was, floating on a small cloud of wooshies (they're disproportionately strong, and gravity-defiant, didn't you know), and I got to actually thinking about those blessings I was trying to count last week.

Last week I couldn't count them through the cloud of internal swearing that was going on in my head. I can't even remember why now, so it can't have been important. This week I'm going to have a go at putting names to them. 

1. I am me. 

I'd be fairly pants at being anyone else.

2. I have a brain. 

I don't always make the best use of it, but I know it's there. I'm perhaps too close to be fully self-aware. I ricochet between "Dear Lord, I'm such an idiot" and "Dear Lord, everyone around me is such an idiot". Those can't both be true, or we'd all be doomed, so I must have some brain cells in there somewhere. 

On Friday I was walking down Union Street trying to work out in my head what the 19th triangle number is. I got it right and everything.

3. I have some skills.

I should remember this. I can play a tin whistle. Yes many many other people can play it better, but many can't pay it at all, and I'm getting better slowly. 

I can't knit but I can crochet. Last Easter I made L this carrot, which is definitely an innocent little carrot, and doesn't look rude at all. 

I can make 3 different types of cake given the recipe and the kitchen to myself. And I can pour wine from the bottle without spilling a drop. I am not entirely devoid of Life Skills. 

4. I can dance.

I'm in there!

So long as it's the sort of dance where there are instructions and no-one ever has to "improvise" or "freestyle" (eeek), I'm ok. I even sometimes manage to get other people to dance. These, I believe, are good things. In a few weeks we're off to IVFDF, where L and I will be calling the Scottish. There's a programme, and music from two very good musicians. I'll never manage to convince you that Scottish Country Dancing is cool, but this should be a cracker of a night and you should be there if you possibly can. 

5. I have a job.

One single, solid job, that I've managed to keep doing for some time now. Even when it was incredibly stressful and not really very enjoyable. I'm ok at it, and I think they want me to keep doing it. That's something, right? They pay me money for it too. That's not to be sneezed at. Moreover I'm able to save some of that money up to pay for this Wedding thing I'm having this year.

My verdict on the whole nine-day-fortnight thing can wait for another week.

6. I have a Fiancee.

I have the best one, if you ask me. This also means I get to plan a big shiny shindig where we all eat lasagne and drink good wine and dance to good music. And I get to go home with a Wife. Ain't that crazy!

7. I am a Christian. 

And I get to say that without risking having my head chopped off. Now there's people out there that would say I wasn't a very good one, on account of that Wife I'm going to have pretty soon, but they don't get to choose, so nerr. I'm lucky that I live in a city where there is a big enough spread of Christian thought that I can find a Church where I can go, with my nearly-Wife, and be welcome. The rumour mill in our place is so slow that someone else congratulates us each week. 

8. I have a supportive family. 

And should probably phone home more often than I do.

9. I have awesome friends.

And pretty darn soon I'm going to get to spent a weekend in a castle with a whole bunch of you. Can't bloody wait. 

Fireplace, candles, freekin' mahoosive dining table, it's got the lot.

10. There is a chicken pie in the oven with my name on it. 

Ok, that's a lie. There are two. But they're quite small and you can't make me feel guilty about it.

Bye!