Day Nineteen

Today, among other things, I had an interview (of sorts) in regards to a freelance writing position for a special needs website. The position sounds amazing, and the woman I spoke with sounded like a kindred spirit in lots of ways. It's probably going to be a volunteer position for the first little while, but they're eventually hoping to get grants and sponsorships in order to pay their staff, so who knows what might happen in the future. AND it's based in Montréal, which leaves open the possibility of an eventual move to la belle ville if the position becomes more of a permanent thing.

So, all of that's exciting. But the most exciting thing about the phone call was the fact that she actually called me 1/2 an hour late because she'd got caught up in reading my blog.

"I love it!" she said. "It's so gorgeous -- one comes away from it really feeling like they know you, and you write so beautifully. I can tell just from this that you're a person I would love to know, and to work with."

And, well, that warmed the cockles of my heart, as they say. We even chatted a little about this 365 project that I'm doing. "Who knows," she said. "Maybe your work with us could bring you joy like that, one day."

Awesomesauce!  How lovely to be able to talk once again about loving one's job, or about one's job bringing joy to one's life. I feel like the world has softened just a little, and shown me a glimpse of possibility and hope beyond my present situation. (Which is absolutely not as bad as it could be, I know.)

Still. How lovely to hear that. I had a smile on my fact the whole day.

"Instructions" on the Indie Books List!

And now, for featured blog Numero Deux, we have an excerpt of Instructions being featured on the Indie Books List.

Fun fun!

In other news, today I braved the torrential downpour and rescued my copy of Annabel from the library. Have just spent a delicious 1.5 hours swimming in Kathleen Winter's luminous prose. How can one help but rejoice in the presence of books like this?

I'll write more about Kathleen Winter in a bit. Suffice to say, right now, that she's everything I want to be in a grown up.

Day Seventeen

Another small, excessively simple thing for today. This morning, my alarm went off at 5:00am, as usual. But I had the day off. So today I got to revel and rejoice in the supremely delicious feeling of turning one's alarm off and snuggling back into bed.

I dreamed of writing, and then woke up a few hours later and had a productive day filled with words.

So simple. So wonderful, in so many ways.

Days of Plenty

A small thing, for today. Which just makes sense, doesn't it? My days can't always be filled with moments of clover-eating, firefly-watching splendour. Some days will be humdrum. Some days will just be ... regular days.

Today was such a day. I worked. I tried very hard to greet everyone with a smile. But when that last worktime minute clicked by, boy, was I glad to march away. Stopped to get my watch fixed on the way home. And then ... I came home and had pizza. And then I watched three episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ate more pizza.

That was my day, more or less. So: when a day is as pleasantly uneventful as the one described above, where does one find the moment worthy of rejoicing?

 Does one rejoice in the fact that the day itself was pleasantly uneventful, especially when one knows that over the course of a lifetime, there will be plenty of days that are anything but? Does one rejoice in the fact that one has a job, even a job one doesn't particularly GUSH over, and can contribute to the home front and feel at least somewhat like a productive member of society? Does one rejoice in the simple fact that one is alive on a gorgeous summer day, and healthy, and surrounded by loved ones? Yes. Absolutely.
Alternatively, one can rejoice over the fact that there's pizza to eat for dinner, and then proceed to eat far too much. Which is exactly what I did.

See -- a year ago, I was living in Edinburgh, trying fiendishly hard to pay my rent and my credit cards and my student loans. I paid my rent, and I paid my student loans. Sort of. And I paid my credit cards. Occasionally. Sometimes less than occasionally. Okay, so I was in trouble. Deep trouble. I carried the burden of my debt around like a stone. But I was surviving. I was eating. I was being responsible, as much as I could be, and trying to make sure that payments were at least being made at intervals.

And then I lost my dogwalking job, because my neighbour went out of work, and suddenly the money that I was spending on groceries disappeared.

I've talked about this before. Suffice to say, now, that in the span of a month and a half, I lost ten pounds, spent a total of £50 on groceries (around $75 Canadian dollars -- pretty slim for six weeks' worth of food) in that time, and found myself ready to cry at the smallest of things. It was rough. My roughest day centred around a "last supper" of frozen french fries and canned gravy -- the last items of food that I had in the house. At that point, I had no more money and no prospect of a paycheque for at least three weeks.

I sat at my table and ate, and then I cried, and went to bed hungry.


Of course, things got better. That particular story has the happiest of endings. And now, a year later, I live in a house with food everywhere. And so, tonight I rejoiced in the fact that I was full, and free of the stress that plagued every waking minute of my life a year ago.


Having said that, though, if given the chance to go back to Scotland, I'd go back in a flash. I'm sure that says all sorts of contradictory, ridiculous things about me. But ridiculous contradiction is the stuff that stories are made of, n'est-ce pas?

beauty and terror

Today, while waiting for my ride home from work, these lines from Rilke's "Go to the limits of your longing" popped into my head:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

And suddenly I had a flash, a glimpse, a deliciously brief taste of what my next novel is going to say. Definitely something worth rejoicing over, even if only to myself.

Here's the whole poem, just because it's that beautiful.

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.


These are the words we dimly hear:


You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.


 Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.


Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.


Nearby is the country they call life. 
You will know it by its seriousness.


Give me your hand.

(Translated by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows)

Day 14: For the love of Pa

Family day today. Drove out to see my paternal grandfather for a few hours, and then drove a scant few kilometres down the road (my parents grew up within two miles of each other, went to the same elementary school until my mother was 10, and then met again when they were in high school, seven years later) and visited my mother's parents. Sat on their back porch and looked out over their yard. It hasn't changed at all since I was ten -- the trees are larger, and the vegetable garden is smaller now, but the air still smells the same.

My father's father grew up in Quebec, and has a Quebeçois accent to rival that of Jean Chrétien. It still surprises me to know that I didn't notice his accent at all when I was growing up. Now, of course, I notice it all the time. I love the way he talks. I love the way both he and my father get increasingly agitated when they speak (particularly when they speak to each other -- the French blood runs hot in these veins, let me tell you!).

And so today I sat with family, and reveled in voices and pictures and sounds from my childhood. It made me thankful for my dad, who can be so gosh darned stubborn and ornery and infuriating but never fails -- ever -- to make life interesting in the extreme. Must be all that French blood.

I'll probably have to write a story about it, some day.

Day 13: Surprises

I've only been at this project for two weeks. And yet somehow--slowly, bit by bit--I can feel it changing my outlook. Changing how I approach the world. Every day holds surprises now. What will my moment be? When will that unlooked-for moment of joy come to greet me? It reminds me of the memoir that CS Lewis wrote, Surprised by Joy (which in turn always makes me think of his wife, Joy Davidman/Gresham, even though the memoir isn't, in fact, about her). These days, I wake up knowing that joy will greet me somehow. Even in its smallest, most inconsequential of forms.


Today brought me three moments of bliss. The first moment came en route to town. I had to go in to Cayuga to get money and make my weekly trip to the library, and I had a heck of a time with the radio cranked. I love driving. I love driving while good music is on the stereo. More often than not, getting myself behind the wheel is a surefire way to bring on bliss.

So that, well, that was awesome. And then, later in the day, while I was out planting trees with my maman, she stopped for a moment and pointed to the other half of the property, which has been growing wild these past few weeks. (Seven acres is a lot of grass to cut.)

"Have you ever eaten clover?" she said.

I had not. So she waded into the tall grass and scooped out a few of the blossoms, then brought them back and showed me how to pick the purple bits apart and suck the white shoots underneath. I didn't taste anything in my first two attempts, but in my third time around that sudden burst of sweetness was there and unmistakable.

"We used to do this," she said, "when we were kids. Go out climbing in the fields behind the house and just eat the clover, and stare at the sky."

And then I got a photo of a daisy, just because I liked the way it looked ...

 

Later that night, my mother came and knocked on my door and asked me to come outside. I was almost asleep, but stumbled out of bed and followed her onto the porch.

And there were fireflies, all over the yard. Blinking madly in the trees down in the ravine next to the house. Shining soft in the air round the porch. I've never seen so many fireflies in my life. We stood there without speaking for almost ten minutes, just listening to the crickets and the bullfrogs and watching these little bits of light dance around us, all around.

Day 12: Kiddies and curses

This might possibly make me a bad person. But today's moment of joy came from the fact that I finally found the text for the much touted "children's" book pictured above.

 I giggled. Quite a bit. And it probably means I'll be a bad mother, but I'd like to think that a good dose of humour is a survival mechanism for any well-rounded parent. Check out this article for more on the female perspective. (The book, as you can see, was written by a man.)

Also: interesting take on viral marketing, no? 

Also: cheeky adult picture book + Samuel L. Jackson = brilliance. Voilà!

 

Day Eleven: Freedom!

I downloaded the trial version of "Freedom" today. You know, the handy program that Nora Ephron touts as her anti-procrastination tool, the software that Naomi Klein says is responsible for her finishing her next book, and the very same thing about which Dani Shapiro writes so beautifully in this essay.


 Sure, it's a bit hysterical, all of this hoopla about something that's on the Internet purely for the purpose of blocking you from the Internet.

But folks, it bloody well worked. I used the first of my five "Freedom" tries for an hour of uninterrupted computer time. I wrote from the beginning to the end of that segment, and then kept on writing even when my Internet kicked back into use. Sure, it's a bit silly. (I mean, why not just disconnect my wireless? Amounts to the same, right? The fact that Freedom makes you reboot your computer in order to reconnect is merely a motivating tool for the lazy, right?) But I will use ANY excuse to avoid writing. And the Internet is such a seductive mistress. I can turn my wireless off and then reconnect it without a twinge of guilt.

So, the fact that I had to reboot my computer in order to reconnect was actually fantastic. One might say it was even something worth rejoicing over. No Internet, for a whole 1.5 hours! And you know what that meant? It meant a 1,500 word blog entry, 500 words of a short story, and yet another outline for the new novel.

I might just have to fork out the $10 and get myself the actual version. In terms of productivity, it'll probably be the best $10 I've spent in ages.

(Barring the money I spend on chocolate fuel, of course  :)

Day 10: Heartbreak and Happiness

I'm going to write more about this tomorrow, but for now, let me just say this.

I'm heartbroken that the Canucks lost. I'm even more heartbroken at the reports of the riots now taking place in Vancouver. So disappointing, folks! And here I thought we were doing so well, and being so civilized about everything.

However. I can't help but also feel joy at how much this game, as it has done for so many years, has brought our country together. Maybe it's a silly thing to rejoice over, especially in light of the riot disgrace as outlined above, but I'm going to take heart from the fact that the majority of Canucks fans and hockey lovers aren't rioting, and love the game as much as I do.

So tonight, even in spite of the heartbreak, I am going to rejoice in the presence of hockey, and how much joy it can bring to this vast stretch of Canadian soil. Well done, boys. Congratulations on a journey well taken.

Day Nine: Frequency!

You know when you're driving and your favourite song comes on the radio? I love those moments. Even today, in the age of mp3 players and car hook-ups for one's iPod and the opportunity for endless favourite songs in one's car, I still find it such a novelty when it happens the old fashioned way.

Ditto for television. I rarely watch the ol' telly anymore, but last night I found myself channel surfing.  And lo and behold, Frequency was on TV. You know, that movie you've probably never heard of, starring Dennis Quaid and James Caviezel (back in the days before The Passion did what it did to his career).

So I hunkered down and watched me a good old-fashioned, commercial-breaks-every-ten-minutes-movie on television. I had the entire rec room to myself, and a lovely mug of tea. About halfway through the film I got a hankering for Smartfood. I kept putting it off, because I'm trying rather hard to fit into this dress that I'll be wearing to my friends' wedding, but I caved about half an hour before the movie's end.

It was delicious. Smartfood + good film + comfy couch = happiness, even if only for one hour and forty-five minutes.

Day Eight: Magic in the forest

So the game is going on right now.  Right now, right this very minute, Boston is lording it over Vancouver by a score of 4-0.  It hurts.  It hurts probably more than it should, and I'm no doubt getting far more worked up over this than I should be, but there you have it.  I am attempting to salvage the situation by reminding myself that a Game 7 in Vancouver, win OR lose, is going to be so much more epic than a Game 6 in Boston.  Still.  My altogether-too-easily-bruised hockey heart is aching right now.

It's a good thing magic still exists in the world ...


Tonight, at about 5 minutes or so into the 1st period (so, AFTER Boston had scored the first goal--maybe the 1st two goals--but before the soul-crunching clinch of those last two pucks in the net), I saw a deer in the backyard.  It was creeping across the back field, and the dog (lovable suck that she is) was barking most ferociously at it.  Normally, when my dog sees deer in the back, she barks enough to send the deer scampering back into the bush.  But for some reason, this doe seemed ... intrigued, maybe?  At any rate, she actually inched her way closer and closer to the house, all the while staring at the dog.  Almost as if she wanted to step up and make friends.  And I watched her move so slow across the grass, her legs long and slender and cautious as the crowd screamed in ecstasy in Boston.  Noise on the TV, and quiet so strong you could touch it, out there on the porch.  And it reminded me, just when I needed reminding, of the fact that so much unbelievable beauty exists in the world.  It was definitely a moment worth rejoicing over.

This became especially evident three minutes later, when Boston secured a four-goal lead.  Sigh.

Oh well.  Luongo -- I still believe in you.  Ditto Schneider (Schneiderman, oh Schneiderman, does whatever a Schneider can ... ).  In fact, you boys might inspire an epic hockey-related post in the next few days.  Guess we'll have to see how Wednesday's game turns out.

And in the meantime, there are deer in my backyard, with their dainty legs and quivering, timid eyes.

Day Seven: Blog Love

Today's bit of rejoicing came, without a doubt, from the comments that were posted in response to this entry.

How can one not feel cherished as a friend and inspired as a writer with the gift of words like these?  So thank you, dear friends and fellow scribes, for putting a smile back on my face and reminding me that just putting that pen down to paper is an accomplishment in and of itself.

You are loved.

Day Six: Porch read

Today I read a little more of Practical Jean, the novel that won Trevor Cole the Stephen Leacock Medal.  Read outside on my parents' lovely porch, in their comfy wicker couch, while the breeze blew gently through the trees and the sun shone down on all.  No rain in this part of the world, at least for today. 

And then my aunt and uncle stopped by for a surprise visit.  They stayed for a barbecue and then we all went down to Dunnville for the Mudcat Festival fireworks.  (I don't know exactly what the fireworks were/are for, but they were pretty spectacular.)

And I felt like a child again, watching them.  There was a family sitting just next to us on the grass, and they had two little girls that reminded me of myself and my sister when we were young--so excited to be there, snuggling under their blanket together.  They laughed and laughed when the fireworks came on.  So cute.

It was a simple day, but an exciting one all the same.  And the simple but exciting pleasures of today--reading out on the porch, barbecued veggie burgers, waiting for fireworks--reminded me so much of what it felt like, being a child.  To look forward to things, to really truly enjoy the things that lay around you, whether they be surprise visits or reading a good book or fireworks exploding in the sky. 

Some time into her newness project, the writer Kathleen Winter posted an entry about how her search for newness had the tendency to culminate in a bunch of new things, all at once.  Today I feel like my resolve to rejoice in one single thing each day has culminated in an entire day's worth of rejoicing.  This is a good feeling.  It gives me hope for the project, for the future, for myself.  For the 359 days ahead of me that might hold treasures such as this.  How lovely, indeed. 

Day Five: PUPPY!

So I'm having a bit of a blah day, folks.  Very much a why bother kind of day.  I opened up the document for the new novel, and felt blah about it.  And then I opened up the ms that's currently making rounds to smaller Canadian presses, and felt blah about it.  Blah.  Blah. 

I mean, why bother?  Why bother, when the newest recipient of the Orange Prize is a mere 25 years old, or when the author of the latest YA fantasy craze is only.  Twenty.  Two?  Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all of the talent that's out there, in the world.  Some days, I wonder if I really have anything worthwhile to say.

The good news, of course, is that these kind of feelings don't last forever.  Especially when there are PUPPIES involved!


My sister and her partner got a new puppy, two days ago.  Her name is Aries.  She's a Rottweiler.  But not just any Rottweiler.  THE CUTEST ROTTWEILER EVER.  And today, smack in the middle of my struggles with the computer, they came and paid a visit.   So I took a much needed break from the blah-ness and the humdrum-ity (and that's a word because I say so), and ran around on the lawn with a puppy.  I won't go so far as to say that it reinvigorated my creative fire, at least not yet, but it certainly was happy times.

I mean, how can one not rejoice when there are such things as puppies in the world? 

Day Four: Itsy Bitsy

Historically, spiders and I have never gotten along all that well.  This despite the fact that spiders have been portrayed rather well, for the most part, in children's literature.  I mean, Charlotte's Web was (as was probably also the case for millions of children) one of my favourite books, growing up. 

But actual spiders, now, that's always been a different story.  One of my earliest memories is of watching a gigantic (okay, so it was probably only twice the size of a quarter, but we're dealing with childhood eyes, here) spider build its web in one of the tires of the van that sat in my parents' driveway.  Thinking about it still makes me shudder.  During my last year in Victoria, I lived for a few months in a basement apartment.  Lesson:  do NOT live in a basement apartment in British Columbia if you have a dislike of spiders.  Seriously, folks:  the emotional distress simply isn't worth it.

Today, though, brought me a different kind of spider story.


Today I did some yardwork.  It's part of the daily routine now, with the advent of this insta-summer weather.  (Where did spring go, again?  Washed away by all the downpour?)  I water the wee little trees, make sure that the perennials haven't yet wasted away, and generally putter around in the sun for an hour or two in order to get my fix of vitamin D.   Today I also spent a good chunk of time raking grass.  When you live on a seven acre farm, there's lots of grass.  Lots of grass, and lots of blisters.  Fun times.  Anyway, while raking up another load of grass this afternoon, and dumping said load into the bonfire pile, I found a rather substantial black spider in the bottom of my wheelbarrow.  This one was DEFINITELY bigger than two quarters.  It was also trying to climb out of the bottom of the wheelbarrow, and not having any success.

Understand--my toes curl when I see spiders.  I wouldn't go so far as to say that they frighten me, though you won't ever catch me watching Arachnophobia of my own free will, but they do make me intensely uncomfortable.  I'd just rather not be where they are.  Yes, I know that you can't go six feet without encountering a spider.  I understand that they're everywhere.  I'd just, you know, be perfectly happy if I lived the rest of my life and never saw another one.

But today, for some reason, something inside me went all warm and fuzzy when I saw that spider in the wheelbarrow.  I don't know what it was.  Maybe it was the fact that it was trying so gosh darned hard to get out of that wheelbarrow.  Maybe it was the recognition that the outdoors is definitely not my domain, and therefore I was on Ms. Charlotte's turf.  I don't know.  But I found myself reaching for the spider.  And what do you know, suddenly it was in my hands, scrambling about (I was wearing gardening gloves -- this was not an outright conversion, folks, never fear), and then I placed it on the ground, and watched it scuttle away.

All I could think about was how tiny it was, in the grand scheme of things, and how very big indeed the world must seem by comparison.  I usually feel that way.  And suddenly I felt all protective of and hopeful for it--a spider--and caught myself blessing every one of its long black legs as it sped away in the grass.

How bizarre.  But today, nonetheless, I rejoiced in the fact that I'm so small, and the world so huge, and sooner or later, if we work hard enough, something happens to show us the way.  And I have a little black spider to thank for it, oddly enough.

Woof (365 days of rejoicing, Day Three)

I'm not going to lie -- these past seven months back home have been pretty tough.  Most days I feel like I'm 15 again, except with none of the social life and three times the responsibility. 

However, I have a dog here.  I did not have a dog (of my own) in Scotland.  And today, I think this is plenty reason to rejoice.  So today, on this day when it was fiendishly hot outside and lovely and cool in the house, I rejoiced in the presence of my dearest snuffle poochie-woo, whose eyes are brown and lovely and whose tolerance for hot and sticky days rivals that of my parents.  We laid on the floor and chillaxed for most of the day.  

She's my favourite blonde in the whole wide world!

Ice, Ice baby (Or, 365 Days of Rejoicing: Day Two)

Today is the first day in a three day stretch off work.  Delightful.  I slept in until 9 (gasp), struggled with words until 12:30, watered plants, played some piano, and concocted grand dinner schemes involving the barbecue and some fresh rhubarb from the store.  (Rhubarb goes in a pie.  Not on bbq.  Sorry for confusion.) 

It usually takes me a day to get back into writing mode, so I'm not going to be too harsh on myself for only having spit out about 500 words.

Oh, and it would appear that I've been chosen as a finalist in this week's 5 Minute Fiction Contest!


The 5 Minute Fiction Contest is a weekly initiative hosted by the lovely Leah Peterson, who tweets @LeahPeterson and writes at www.LeahPeterson.com.  This week's contest centred around the theme of "ice", which dovetailed with my life quite well, as only yesterday my dad was telling me about glacial ice and .

Five finalists were chosen, and as you can see they've all taken the theme of "ice" in varying directions.  I'm in good company, and tickled pink (or maybe blue, as the case may be, har har) to be there.

But the best part about it had to be the Twitter message that I received from another one of the contest participants.  Hi there, she said.  I read your entry to the #5MinuteFiction contest and was completely blown away.  I thought it was the best one.  Hope you win!  And then, a few minutes later, she sent this:  To be honest I have never been quite this moved by a few paragraphs before.  Yes, I am aware that I'm fangirling.  #ashamed.

Which just, well, warms the cockles of my heart.  This is way better than winning any kind of contest!  So today, Day 2 in my 365 days of rejoicing, I'm going to rejoice over the gift of these words. Here's to Islinda, also known as @darkonfire, who brightened my day with her messages.

Oh, and you should definitely check out the contest, and vote for your fave.  I won't say vote for me, because my fellow finalists are pretty darn good, but any votes you would like to shoot my way would be very much appreciated.  The winner will be announced tomorrow morning at 9am!
 

365 days of rejoicing

I've spent the majority of the past year and a half in varying shades of depression.  I think, for the most part, that it's been a situational sort of depression, borne out of the fact that I was burning myself out in Scotland in order to stay there because I loved it so much.  So when things in Scotland crumbled anyway, and I found myself flying back to Canada with nary a job or prospect in sight, the world and my experience of it collapsed in quite a few significant ways.

But depression does run in my family, and around six years ago I had an episode of sadness that was not dissimilar to what I've described above.  Once again, that period of sadness involved a burn-out -- in that case, I was working 35 hours a week and taking six classes at uni and generally just spreading myself way too thin.  It happens.  I tend to do this -- throw myself into things full tilt, work really hard, lose sight of the importance of standing back and resting and allowing things to fall naturally into place.  I can do it, I always think.  I just need to work harder, be better, write more, do more, sleep less.  Stop complaining.  Reach for every opportunity, and things will eventually come.  

Anyway, so I've been depressed -- mostly situational, perhaps a little bit clinically -- for most of the past eighteen months.  And I've struggled and cried and tried really hard to lift myself above it.  Some days this has worked.  Most of the time it hasn't.  But I find I'm reaching a point, now, where I can't imagine continuing like this for much longer.  It's hard work, being sad most of the day.  Sadness spreads -- it infects everything around you, until you get to the point where happiness, or even contentment, feels like a country far away.

I don't want to be like this anymore.  And so, today I decided that for the span of one year, I would focus on one small thing, each and every day, that gave me cause for rejoicing.  I can do small.  I can focus -- part of the problem, one might argue, in the whole depression thing is that one becomes TOO focused on sadness, and unable to see anything else.  I would so much rather focus on a thing to make me happy than focus on those things that frustrate me, or make me feel as though I'm floundering, adrift in disappointment at the fizzling out of dreams.

I'm not going to be naive about this, and assume that from here on in every day will be wonderful.  Nor am I going to overstretch and imagine that each day will bring something different in which to rejoice.  They very well might (and if you're intrigued by the idea of newness, you should definitely check out Kathleen Winter's blog, and her 365 of newness project!), but in all likelihood the year ahead still holds some sad and humdrum days.  What's life without a little sadness and boredom?  But I'm sure I'll find something to rejoice in, even then.  Even if it's the luxury of being able to recognize that I'm bored, for example, and capable of thinking and dreaming my way out of said ennui.  Even if it's taking a day to rejoice in the fact that I can be sad, and this can be okay, because it won't last forever. 

So I suppose, folks, that we'll see what happens.  I'm excited about this right now -- we'll see if I'm still excited about it six months from now!  And even though this is technically a writing blog, and this rejoicing project isn't -- or won't be, some days -- strictly about writing, I though I'd post about it here anyway.  Because stories will come out of this, somehow.

I'm going to post my rejoicing updates on Twitter, using the hashtag #365daysofrejoicing.  And I'll try to keep updating my experiences and my days here, although I can't promise that I'll post every day!  Last year, when I did my 365 Flickr photo project, I came SO CLOSE to scrapping the project dozens of times.  I have a hunch that the same thing will happen with this.  But I promise, from the bottom of my heart, that I will try and see it through.  At the very least, I should be able to manage 140 characters of a Twitter update each day, or muster an explanation (ie. international travel, capture and imprisonment by aliens/Twilight fanatics, etc) as to why said update won't be possible in certain cases. 

And so, for Day One in my 365 days of rejoicing:  today I rejoiced in the presence of an unexpected, free vanilla latté.  One of the patients at work left her wallet in the waiting room, and we called her to let her know that it had been turned in.  When she came back, she was overflowing with gratitude.  And she left us twenty dollars, and told everyone to have a coffee on her, as thanks.

So today I sipped a vanilla latté at work, and reveled in its frothy, warm deliciousness, and thought about how lucky I was, and how blessed.