Inspired by all the great new stuff up on 10 Things, as well as by this Scientific American article,* I’m going to experiment with making a list here once a week. Here goes nothin’.

1) On Monday when I got to work I discovered that approximately 45 old CRT monitors had been piled (quite neatly, I have to admit) on one side of my cubicle, filling the space under the tables, on the tables, and against the walls. Since three drones used to be housed in my largish work area and now there is only me buzzing around in there, the powers-that-be apparently decided it was a good time to turn the place into a storage closet. I don’t mind so much—I made a sign for the door that says my name and “Graveyard of the Monitors,” and every now and then someone I don’t even know stops in mid-stride outside the entrance of my cube and gapes at the scene open-mouthed. That’s pretty funny. And just think, in July they’ll be able to fit another 20 totally junky pieces of equipment nobody wants in there! Hooray for them!

Anyway, that’s not thing #1. Ray the friendly help desk guy dropped by in the afternoon to stack another monitor onto the pile, and he told me that the reason they all appeared in my cube over the weekend is that prior to that they had been piled up in stairwells, and in order to stop violating fire codes they had to be moved. So Thing #1 is that if we ever were to have a fire at work, my own personal Graveyard of the Monitors would help prevent thousands of people from dying horribly. Hooray for me!

2) Also on Monday, I had dinner with Liz. Just typing that makes me smile.

3) We ate at the vegan restaurant Grasshopper, and damn the food we got was good. Won ton soup and veggie tempura and these incredible fried tofu appetizer things and a crunchy sweet battered main dish eloquently called “No Name.” It is possible I still have rice on my chin.

4) The delightful Estee sent me two wonderful books, for no reason at all except that she is incredibly generous and kind. They arrived today and are making me so happy (I wish you could see the photographs in that cookbook) my feet are dancing in the bed right now. It’s true.

5) The first two Bookmooch books I sent arrived, so now some strangers have happy new reading material, I have a little less to pack, and I’m saving up points to mooch loads of books when we arrive in our next home. Ah, the circle of lifeterature.

6) Coronas and lime. Even if I drink them sitting on the couch watching TV, they taste like being outdoors at night, with friends. Friends, come be outdoors with me and my Coronas and lime!

7) Ross is visiting UMD this weekend. That means by the time he comes back, even if he hasn’t made a decision yet, he’ll basically have all the information he needs to make a decision. Phew! It also means

8) No one will laugh at me if I put Spam in my pineapple fried rice, and make me go through, again, the fact that where I come from we call it luncheon meat and eat it with nasi lemak and it is not so vastly and widely reviled that annoying internet marketing messages are named after it. Not that I made pineapple fried rice with spam last night or anything.

9) After I totally didn’t eat my totally-not-embarrassing dinner last night, I did have a slice of cheesecake.

10) It was the second slice of cheesecake I have had in the last five days.

All in all, not a bad week I suppose. Next time I will strive for fewer food-related items so the internet doesn’t think I am ruled by my taste buds (ha!).

Have a lovely weekend, folks. Oh! And if your name happens to be Jennifer and you haven’t written a blog post since November and you just became an aunt for the first time after the birth of two baby girls whose names happen to be Ella and Emma… well, then, you just might consider making a 10 Things list of your own sometime soon. I’m just saying.

*From the article: …conventional wisdom suggests keeping a daily gratitude journal. But one study revealed that those who had been assigned to do that ended up less happy than those who had to count their blessings only once a week.