Thankfulness 2018: Week 8

Some work this week, and the start of a vacation to New Zealand!  Things I was thankful for:

• The camaraderie of a team
• My kindle
• An empty seat next to me on the plane
• A long, hot shower after two days of traveling.  Seriously, this is one of life's best pleasures.
• Learning interesting things about vineyards

And a few pictures:

Part of the team camaraderie - bagging the robot.

Learning about vineyards.  Each plant has a right and a left "arm", and each arm is pruned to have 5 shoots, and then each shoot is pruned to have 2 bunches, which results in about 20 bunches per plant.

In New Zealand near the home of the first commercial bungy jumping location.  Fun fact:  The people who "invented" bungy jumping got the idea from watching people from Vanuatu do something similar with vines.

Thankfulness 2018: Week 7

Again week 7 was another crazy week of chaos and uncertainty at work.  Some things for which I was thankful were:

• In love the Father veils the future
• Receiving a compliment on my work
• A quick greeting from a friend.  He stopped by my desk just to say "hi" and to tell me to keep encouraged.
• Waking with a hymn in my head
• A funny encounter at the grocery store
• The power of asking.  What was made obvious to me that week was the power of asking.  In our human relationships, there is power in asking for what we need or want.  Not in a whining way, but telling somebody what we need because other people aren't mind readers.  God is a mind reader, so we don't need to ask for things because he doesn't know.  But I think there are two things related to asking God that supply the power.  One is admitting to ourselves that we need something.  The second is humbling ourselves enough to ask for what we need.

Again, not a lot of pictures being taken this week.  But that will definitely change next week.

Focusing on something besides work - had a robotics practice event.  My team's robot is not the one in the picture.

Stopping to appreciate to sunset as I left work.

Thankfulness 2018: Week 6

I got kind of behind due to work being busy and taking a long vacation.  Week six happened in mid-February.  It was a chaotic week because of upheaval at work, but it had some highlights and things that I was thankful for.

• A strong reminder about what is important in life.  My cousin and his family had a house fire.  They got out of the house in time, but most of their possessions didn't.
• Doing yoga with my favorite instructor
• Making time to exercise
• Having a support network and having a long Friday evening conversation with a friend from work.

I only took one non-work-related photo that week, so here it is.

As I heard birds chirping while shoveling snow, I was reminded that spring is just around the corner!