Good News, Bad News

Well, today was one of those “I’ve got good news … and I’ve got bad news” sort of days.  But in an effort to be more positive about things, I’m going to try to do what they call in all of those silly ‘Better Management” books, the Oreo Cookie method and sandwich the bad items in between good ones, where possible – or at least look at the bright side when I can.

1. My hard drive is about to fail… but at least I know it and I’m able to get my stuff off of it before it does so – and I’ve been needing to redo my OS drive anyway.
2. I came home with a real humdinger of a headache which I thought was another sinus headache.  It turned out to be a migraine, but my wife suggested taking a Zomig, which I took soon enough to turn it into a barely tolerable amount of pain instead of an ungodly amount.
3. I’m almost completely caught up with all my projects at work … but I struggled today because all 6 of my projects are waiting for others to figure out what they need/want to do … but that gave me time to do some ‘housekeeping’ stuff and work on some best practices documents.
4. I got a haircut today, about 2 weeks after I needed one … but I had to wait 45 minutes with that burgeoning headache … but my wife told me that it was a sexy cut when she got home.
5. With my computer down and the laptop with my wife, I figured I would sit and watch TV – but the FiOS was recording two things and the only recorded shows were shows we like to watch together or stuff that only she watches.  But it gave me time to complete my first New York Times Sunday crossword of the year.
6. The dogs were really glad to see me this evening when I finally got home since they needed to go out badly … but so did the cat, who scampered out twice and had to be retrieved.  But at least Oakley worked on his ‘herding skills’.
7. One of my best friends and his wife had their first baby on Monday (Julia) … but we didn’t get the message until a day later because they had the wrong email address.  But hey – Jim (well, Rosemary, obviously) had a baby.  There’s really no downside to that.
8. When I got home, the power was out on the one part of the house (bad circuit), meaning that the front porch light, living room lights and kitchen were dark … but the fridge being off for hours meant that my ice cream was nice and soft and easy to scoop (when life gives you soft ice cream, make milkshakes).

I’ve found that while things are going fairly well, I’ve been finding myself getting negative and stressed out way too often.  I’m really going to take a page from Van’s book and try a more positive, forward-thinking and productive approach to life.  I mean, considering what I’m seeing happen around me to some of the people I know, work with and talk to, my life is going pretty well.  I like my job, I’m getting paid well and my commute is a 1500% better than it was, I have a loving wife and 4 (insane and) enjoyable pets, we’re mostly healthy, my family is mostly healthy, global warming hasn’t melted the shingles on our house yet and if my computer really does die, I just might be able to convince the wife that I should just get a new Mac Pro instead of a new hard drive.  Okay, I didn’t say I would be successful…

All in all, I have a lot of things to be thankful for and should really shut the hell up when I feel like complaining.  Everyone has time issues, but at least I’m getting to spend most of my down time doing good things instead of working a second job at WienerMart or suffering through a debilitating case of Ebola-induced acne.  Plus, I do have some real Oreos up in the pantry…