Life Happens, Coffee Helps. Always

It’s been a mixed month as usual. The colder weather means severe sinus headaches, the possibilities of colds and infections—and in short—life happens. We try and manage as best as we can as we focus on all the good things.

It’s weird though. I am usually organized but the past few weeks have overwhelmed me, what with falling sick and being in pain and doctor’s visits. And here I was, happily thinking of my son’s visit and singing “all I want for Christmas is you”. To be fair, though, I did get what I wanted, and then some.

I am still not okay, but didn’t want that to stop me from listing what I am grateful for.

Here we go then.

What I am grateful for

Son’s visit

The highlight of this month for me is my son’s visit. So glad he’s home for three weeks. As usual he’ll be busy with working on his project and studying and writing exams. Some of the exam centers are so far off but we make the most of it.

I accompany him and catch up on my reading and walking around the campus and sometimes, also making nice connections with other parents.

One such contact was a lovely lady whose life’s milestones were so similar to mine that it was spooky—right up to her mom passing away from a lung disease. Cosmic, right? Interesting!

And of course, I always enjoy walking around doing nothing much other than maybe looking for coffee and simply appreciating my surroundings.

Friends

Grateful for friends dropping by earlier this month and staying over. It meant a shopping binge in the local market and that’s always fun. Nothing like visiting an export surplus outlet and trawling through loads of stuff that’s fascinating and unbelievably cheap—with a couple of pieces we’ll probably never wear once we bring home. It’s the joy of the experience, more than anything else, and coming home pleasantly tired, AND doing a fashion show trying on everything. Yep. That still excites me! So glad I have company.

Cooking

It’s always wonderful when son’s home for his break—even if it is short—because I love cooking his favorite stuff. Somehow, life happens when we are happiest. The food fest was cut short by the tummy bug we all caught. Still. Looking at the bright side.

Sick and recovering

Right now, we are taking turns to fall sick. My son and I are still down and recovering—and it is so exhausting. We’re looking at huge dental stuff for my husband which I guess we’ll tackle shortly because so much to do. Although, we can’t always quote the life happens excuse. Yet we do. Just grateful we are together at this point.

Consequently, I barely got any work done this month but I am taking it easy. When life happens, we have to acknowledge and do what’s best for us, right? So grateful I am my own boss!

Shopping, packing

It’s that time again when my son will return to college for his last semester. Apparently, they’re having one of the coldest winters ever, right now. We’re busy making shopping and packing lists for winter stuff, taking stock of what needs to be replaced, etc. Long process, looking for reasonably priced things that are also good quality. However, it’s something we enjoy doing. Grateful to those shops that will home-deliver. Saves so much time, especially now, when we are all sick and recovering.

Books

When life happens, we have to look for the silver linings. One of them this month, for me, is the #DecBookLove book challenge on Instagram, running all month, where we post our book picks for the day based on prompts. It is a lot of fun because, besides stressing over which book to pick among the thousands that seem a perfect match, it has been great to revisit a lot of books on my shelves. I grew up in a family where an entire floor was devoted to the library–we all had duties to maintain it and it was a happy haven to escape to.

What with mostly reading ebooks these days, I often miss sitting with a stack of physical books. And guess what—so many I haven’t read yet. Thankful for the pleasant experience.

Thursday Tree Love

This is my tree for Parul’s ThursdayTreeLove blog hop.

This tree sits on my son’s campus in one of the corners, with a little lily pond behind it. When that is in bloom, it is a deep blue. It is such a beautiful sight during winter and I cannot wait to see how it looks now.

Not sure what it is called—I did Google it but gave up. Do you know what it is? The blue skies are the perfect backdrop for the pleasantly yellow leaves and one can occasionally see someone taking a selfie there. We were no exception.

The photos make me so happy! And it is always fun to revisit that spot to see how the tree has grown. There are some other trees on campus I like to keep track of – and I am always amazed at how different they look each time we visit.

My community

Last and certainly never the least, is my gratitude to my lovely Lady Bloggers Engage community, an exclusive group of dedicated women bloggers who have your back in terms of sharing your posts, commenting on them, supporting you on social media and always being around to answer any questions related to blogging and related stuff and anything else.  If you’d like to grow your blog and be part of this group, and rewarded for your participation, register here today: LadyBloggersEngage

And as always, grateful for my family and friends.

That’s a wrap for the December 2019 Gratitude Circle post!

What was December like for you? Did you celebrate Christmas?

Are you in holiday mode?

What do you do when life happens?

Tell me in the comments. Or write a post and add it to the linky below.

Welcome to the December 2019 Gratitude Circle blog hop.

How to participate:

To join the Gratitude Circle blog hop, you can write about anything that made you feel good. It is not mandatory to write about your personal life. Or list personal things you are grateful for. You have the freedom to share anything that made you feel good. A happy event. Something you saw. An experience. A place. Something that brought you happiness. A lovely book you read that filled you with joy. Anything. I repeat, it need not be personal at all.

• Write your posts.
• Add the badge.
• Link to my post. ♥ (to validate your entry to the linky)
• Add your post link to the linky below.

Wishing you a wonderful new decade ahead!

Happy 2020 ♥