This week's pick one thing....

Within the last 6 months, I have been required to work from the office (as opposed to working from home)...to make the concept (and the rush-hour commute) more palatable, I started cultivating this horrible habit of going through the McDonald's drive through for McCafe'. Then, as long as I was there, I would get a breakfast sandwich.

I knew that was a habit that I needed to break - both for health and financial reasons. Yet, I just couldn't; my car was sucked into the drive through like a magnet.

When I thought about why I was resisting...I discovered that it wasn't the food at all that I wanted - it was the coffee. The food got added because I have taken to carrying little/no cash on my person; I use my debit card. (this is how I discovered that I needed a separate budget line-item just for my nasty drive-through habit) And, when I used my debit card I would feel guilty (don't ask...I can't explain) "just" getting a coffee...like use of a debit card wasn't justifiable or permissable for "just" coffee. That is how the food got thrown in.

So...I set out to find a way to have the coffee that I enjoy in the morning while saving money and avoiding fast food. I bought myself a coffee maker for the office (because I didn't want to spend $4 on a coffee at the cafe here in the building, either) and started using it 2 weeks ago.

I am happy to say that, for the 2 weeks since I got the machine, I have not driven through McDonald's! I have saved $5.59/day on the coffee and McGriddle combo and avoided fast food!


Next week I'll be at the homestead in Michigan...safe travels to all this holiday season.

Grieving through the "firsts"....

My Dad died in mid-October 2008. Fully a year ago.

"They" say that the first everything is the hardest after someone dies. First holidays, first birthday...you name it....if it's the first after the death, then it's the hardest.

Well, I am not disputing "them". But I will also say very honestly that I feel like the first holidays without my Dad - i.e., the holidays of 2008 - were a cake-walk compared to this second wave of grief that has swelled up this year.

Maybe it's because he died so close to Thanksgiving and Christmas...so that initial hazy fox with which grief blankets us in those first weeks or months after someone dies carried me through the holidays relatively unscathed....

Whereas someone whose loved one died early in the year might experience their first holidays without the loved one with more sadness and missing.

Now, a year out, I'm much clearer in my head....and the holidays this year, I'm finding, are a whole different ball of string. Seems like THIS round of holidays is felt with the same kind of magnitude normally reserved for the first round that "they" warn you about.

So it's sort of like when tissue goes into shock...the nerves sort of numb-up....and then, later, when stuff starts coming back to life tissues and nerves connect we are thrust back into the acute awareness of the pain that comes with healing.

I keep clinging to the fact that grief is a process - although admit to really wondering when I'll see the light at the end of this tunnel.

Mostly, though...I just miss my Dad.