Attitude Adjustment – Contentment in Any Situation Edition

Just yesterday, I was so grumpy and whiny that I had to go back and delete my own blog post! Blah! Bad grumpy Jeannine was on the loose! Then…Magic Attitude adjustment. This morning I woke up…content. Not spring-out-of-bed energetic, but, vaguely…all right with everything going on. The lack of writing, I knew, was temporary. The rejections on the job front were all there for a reason, and after all, thanks to my still-gainfully-employed husband, I still have health insurance, enough to eat, a roof over my head. My health problems, while irritating, were not insurmountable – I can still enjoy the late fall sunshine, go watch the horses at the nearby horse farms, and my evil tonsillitis seems to finally be on the mend. I tossed all of the too-large clothes out of my closet yesterday, along with heels my physical therapist has deemed not great for my weak ankles for at least a year. Somehow, this seemed symbolic of the things I have to leave behind in order to embrace the things I have.
The sunshine and mild temperatures, the fall smells in the air (surely not falling leaves, here in mostly non-deciduous Seattle, but the recent rain on the pines) combined to bring back my…spirit? I decided not to sweat the small stuff. I took my wedding ring in to be repaired, and in the meantime, I bought a $5 rhinestone replacement at Claire’s so I didn’t keep touching my finger and missing it. My recent cancellation of my trip home to Cincinnati this fall, which had been bumming me out, instead made me think of all the good things I do have – a family great enough to actually miss, for instance, and the chance to relax a little more this fall as I mend and tend to my new book’s launch (like the new Northwest Bookfest where I am going to be reading with wonderful poets Kelli Agodon, Elizabeth Austen and Susan Rich, the new Geek Girl Con which will be awesome, and other new exciting ventures!) So see? I just have to learn to be content despite my circumstances. Rainier came out today, and was so beautiful shining over the flat green fields and trees of Woodinville. Also, a beautiful black horse with a white star on its nose walked right up to me in the field today, and nodded at me, and when I nodded back, it nodded again! (Horse magic!) I wished I had some sugar cubes or apples for it. Plus the ability to scale a fence and a large ditch.
And oh, running into this Onion article on the Poet Laureate first thing in the morning didn’t hurt my mood: if only poetry was the thing holding our troubled nation together!