another gratitude list.

Those of you who know my father know that for everything I do in life, there is saying to go with it. "The early bird catches the worm," "if at first you don't succeed, try , try again," and "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," are just a few of the precious little gems he likes to throw at me on a daily basis. I usually roll my eyes at these particular moments but over the course of the last week, there was one saying I couldn't get rid of in my head. My father used to always tell me, "Every sunset has a sunrise." The point is that after dark and harrowing times, things always get better.

Well, in the instance of these last two weeks, my father had it backwards. After ten glorious days of reunions, holiday meals, birthday celebrations and more, the week that followed (last week) was downright awful. Between working overtime, three different doctor's appointments (one of which included having a needle stuck in my throat), FEDex losing my time-sensitive lease for my new apartment, and more, each day felt worst than the one before and I felt like I just couldn't catch a break. Over the course of the week I grew more exhausted, stressed, and weepy and I didn't like how negatively I was responding to the situation.

Luckily, Saturday rolled around and even though I still had to get up early to get my second lease notarized and had to babysit Saturday night, having the day to breathe and be at home and spend nice mother-daughter time with Sylvia finally calmed me down and helped me regain my sense of control. The weekend was both relaxing and productive; I watched a lot of movies and lounged around the house, but also started packing up my bedroom for New York and took care of all the christmas shopping I needed to do. While that was therapeutical in itself, something my mom said while we were out to dinner stuck with me. She said "If we didn't have to deal with bad things in life, then we wouldn't appreciate the good things."

So true. Thus, it is time for a new gratitude list.

a) I am so grateful for my parents. The more stressed I became, the more my mother jumped in and tried to take off any pressure she could, whether it meant having dinner cooked for me when I got home from work, helping me figure out how to start packing up my room, or calling FEDex to find out where the hell my lease was. She was on the phone with FEDex maybe five times a day from the day my lease was lost until the day I was able to send out the second one. Additionally, my poor father got dragged in the mess of the lease because he agreed to be my guarantor. We both thought he would sign the lease, send in copies of his tax returns, and he really wouldn't have to do much more. When the lease was lost, he had to get out of bed on Saturday morning after having had a surgery on Friday morning just to come to the notary with me so we could send out the new lease that same morning. While he complained about it as much as I did, I appreciate him being there for me and helping me get the task at hand done.

b) I am grateful for my relationship with my baby half-brother Sam. I babysat him on Friday night and he was so funny and so well-behaved with me. Before moving home this summer, he only saw me for a few days at a time and thus, had to re-remember me every time I returned home for a visit. Having been here for the past six months, he knows who I am and he enjoys telling me stories and having me around. I worry that he'll forget me again once I move to New York, but I also know that the older he gets, the more he'll understand who Taylor and I are and I hope that all three of us can maintain a strong relationship.

c) I am grateful for how lucky I've been with work over the past couple of months. I am currently working with four different families - all so nice and generous and all with adorable children who are easy to work with. The hours the families need me for fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces and because of it, I am working almost 45-50 hours a week. I am grateful to be kept busy and to be able to save money since I won't be able to work as much (if at all) in New York City. Additionally, I have developed great friendships with these families and will be sad to leave them.

d) I am grateful that the fall foliage in the bay area is only just now starting to deteriorate! I didn't even know we had good foliage until these past couple of months. I guess Vermont instilled a foliage-appreciation sense in me. While the leaves in Vermont have been long gone, there are still several trees in this area that are still brightly glorious with orange and gold and crimson shades.

e) Once again, I am grateful for the people who I am able to keep in touch with. Between emails and snail mail and long phone conversations, there are very few people in my life who I feel have disappeared from my peripheral vision and who I know nothing about as of lately. I hope I can change that over time, but for now, I am glad for the people who are still there and who I know will continue to be.

f) I am grateful for the holiday season!!!!!!!!!!! This is a big one. The house is now becoming more and more festive with christmas lights and a tree on the way. Last night while John hung lights and my mother baked cookies, I started working on the "made" part of my secret maccabee present for one of my girlfriends (secret maccabees is the same as secret santas, but four out of eight of us are jewish, hence the creative spin on the name). This is when home feels the most like home: everyone sipping on glasses of wine, christmas music playing, the heat turned high, and yummy smells coming from the kitchen all make the whole month feel festive, not just December 25th.