10 Good Things

I've been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately.  I'm even starting to bore myself.  So I decided to do something positive- a list of 10 Good Things.  I'm sorry to say it took me two whole days to come up with this list, but I finally thought of ten of them!

1.  I sold a cooler full of books at Half Price today and earned $14.  Yay!
2.  While I was waiting for my offer I picked up a book and read a few pages of Lois McMaster Bujold.  That's always a happy thing.
3.  I took a 2 hour nap this morning and woke up feeling better, more refreshed.
4.  The actual temperature was cooler today (although the humidity was high, so it was still pretty miserable outside), which means the apartment stayed cooler and the a/c didn't have to run as much.  Hooray for saving a buck!
5.  I had Arby's for dinner.  Yum!
6.  There are NO DIRTY DISHES IN THE KITCHEN.  I'm not sure that's ever happened before.  It's a miracle!
7.  I made jello for tomorrow.  Now not only do I get yummy, yummy jello, but I've removed 2 things from the pantry- a box of jello and a can of peaches.  And I've used up part of a third item- the bag of mini marshmallows.
8.  Last night before bed I wrote a short final scene for the new book that's been knocking around in my head.  I still don't know what the mystery is about, or what the characters' names are, or even much about what they look like.  But it felt good to get those few first (last) words on the page.
9.  It's taken me almost a week, but I've finally committed to letting my yearbooks go.  I really don't want them, have no interest in looking at them again, so why keep them?  I'm half tempted to pull them out now that I've decided to let them go, but I won't.  When my friend's son comes over to haul stuff around for me I'm going to have him carry the box straight out to the car and take them to Half Price Books with everything else.
10.  After much flailing around I decided to try contacting my senator to see if they can help me with my Social Security situation.  (It's impossible to sum it up briefly if you haven't been following along.  But bottom line, I'm on a 12 month waiting list for the next level of appeal, and my current insurance will run out at midnight August 31st if I haven't been approved.)  I did a little bit of research and discovered that one of my senators is on the Finance committee, which is responsible for the Social Security Act and also on the Health Care subcommittee.  Yay!  I don't expect his office to step in and make anyone approve my application.  But if I could get bumped up the queue because of the urgency of my insurance situation, that would be amazingly fantastic.  I just want a fighting chance to get approved before time runs out.  Right now I'm actually considering no insurance at all as being a smarter health and financial choice than an insanely expensive plan that may cover nothing for the first 12 months and little after that.  The fact that someone with two chronic health problems, one of which could become fatal without proper treatment, is possibly considering no coverage at all as the smart option is completely insane.  It's the reality of health care in this country.

Well, I got a little off track there with item #10.  I can ride that hobby horse for days if no one stops me.  (Anyone who's read more than a post or two is nodding right now.  "Yes, Becky, we've noticed.")  But overall I'm very happy to have found ten good things.  I think I'm going to have to make this a regular feature.  Lately it's been hard to see any good things as I've crashed from one disaster to another.  But they're out there.  They're out there.