joy: week 30

a pleasant week

For years, I would wake up every day with the Jeopardy! theme song in my head. It was funny at first, but quickly became annoying. No matter what I did to combat it, the tune was always there as soon as I got up. It became this ominous thing that reminded me every day felt pressure filled. I hated it. And then it stopped. I just realized this week that I was getting up with different songs in my head each day. Songs I like, songs I had been listening to, which makes so much more sense. I think the Jeopardy! theme left when I finally got used to not working, when I actually felt retired and stopped waking up thinking I had to go to work. The brain is a weird and wonderful thing.

So that was my first joy for a week in which I don’t have all that much to write about it. It was a good week. Therapy was good, I had a good checkup with my pulmonologist, nothing bad happened. This past week was all about the little things.

I got a new storm door and, as a treat, a welcome sign that has interchangeable holiday decorations. My old storm door was from the dark ages. It had gothic spikes that covered most of the window. Now I can get more natural sunlight, more fresh air (it has a retractable screen), and best of all the cats now have a perfect view of the squirrels and birds. They spend most of their day on a rug in front of the door, observing all the animals they would kill if they were just allowed outside.

I watched a bunch of movies this week but none gave me more joy than Arthur Christmas.

Just an absolute joy of a movie. Charming, sweet, and funny misfit-saves-the-day kind of film. I recommend it for your holiday watching. I would love recommendations for more Christmas movies like this.

I cooked a whole bunch this week, making pizza, and chicken Francaise and honey ginger chicken thighs among other things. My meals don’t always come out fantastic, but they are always good. I have found absolute joy in cooking, to the point where I look forward to it every night instead of dreading it.

I’m going to cut this short today because I am going to the diner with my family for a big Sunday breakfast, and then I am going to see Taking Back Sunday perform songs from their new album at a record store. That is an ideal way to wrap up what was a pretty good week. Hope yours was great as well.

I will leave you with music from Birthday Dad, whom I discovered this week and fell in love with.