Something to Keep in Mind

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By 7:35 this morning, I’d already had a “day” of today.

As I rolled out of bed and glanced at my phone, I saw a text from my bank saying I was overdrawn. I didn’t believe it. They must have gotten something wrong. I love to budget and I love to know where every penny I have is headed. While it was possible I had messed something up, it wasn’t very likely.

I continued getting ready for my day, reminding myself to look deeper into the bank issue as soon as I could.

I was dressed and ready to head out the door, just as soon as I prepared my yogurt. I dump it in a short glass, cover it with blueberries and granola, and sprinkle several chocolate chips on top. My husband, who had a stomach ache a couple days before, had told me earlier that he’d had some yogurt, made just the way I do, and he thought it had cured his stomach issues.

Noticing that it was time for me to head to my vehicle, I was hurrying to fill the glass, toss the blueberries in, add the granola, and- where are the chocolate chips? I turned to my husband and asked if he’d had any when he made his breakfast the day before.

He wrinkled his brow in concentration as if trying to remember (like anyone forgets eating chocolate chips). Yes, yes, he thought he had. I pulled a chair over to the upper cabinet, spinning it around like it was a merry-go-round, looking for the yellow bag.

“It seems like there weren’t many left in the bag,” he muttered, pretending to look as if he were also looking for the bag.

That got my attention. “So is there a chance that you finished them and didn’t tell me? Because if I don’t know we’re out, I can’t buy more.”

“Yep, that’s probably what happened,” he said. I nodded grimly and got down from the chair, scooting it back across the room.

I suffered through my chocolate chip-less breakfast.

Later, I also got to the bottom of my bank issue. I had known a big credit card payment was coming up, so I’d paid over half of it a couple weeks early, thinking that when the payment came up, the credit card company would count that initial payment toward the debt. Nope. The credit card company saw that as a bonus payment and took the big payment out too!

It took some shuffling to cover that problem and I’m afraid I was fairly short with the poor guy who answered the call at the credit card company.

As I said, it had been a day!

But, as I have taught myself to do when I’m especially irritated about things, I took a look around and I found several things I could add to my gratitude journal.

I’m grateful I don’t work for a credit card company.

I’m grateful that I was able to cover the debt, even though I wasn’t prepared for it.

I’m grateful I was heading out the door to work with a couple of amazing people.

I’m grateful my car was full of gas to get me there.

And I’m grateful the store had plenty of bags of chocolate chips for my breakfast tomorrow.

The very best time to notice all you have is always when you think things can’t get any worse.