I just realized that figuring out what photo I'm on just got a lot harder, since after Jan. 31 they no longer correspond with the date!

What I find hard about this project is I hate missing actually taking a photo every day. But, what I love about it is that when I do forget, I make myself go back over the day (if I can't remember what happened I check Facebook, my personal email, even my work email) and find something to take or find a photo of. So it's making me be really conscious about what I'm actually grateful for each day. Some days it's a stretch; other days I have to pick one out of many things. Either way I think it's a great exercise. So without further ado ...

Day 32 (Mon. Feb. 1): Family.

I took this photo a couple days later when I realized I'd missed this day. I remembered showing off this set of photos to a co-worker on Monday. These are from the photo shoot my downstairs neighbor did for us in December. He always manages to catch such great shots. And, if this is the first time I've posted a photo of myself, I'm the one in the magenta shirt.



Day 33 (Tues. Feb. 2): Public transportation.

I'm so glad my city has a great bus and train system. It's not without its flaws; for instance our lower income neighborhoods, who need it the most, are underserved. (They have it, it's just not as many buses, and the shelters aren't heated, etc.) But overall it's a great system.



Day 34 (Wed. Feb. 3): The best new website in the world!

One thing you may not know about me is that me and my partners are huge Simpsons fans. I mean, most people like the Simpsons, but we're rabid. Have all the box sets. Can have entire conversations consisting only of Simpsons quotes. Love love love the Simpsons.

And on Wednesday, a friend told us about a website, frinkiac.com, that helps you create memes by searching for quotes from any episode, and it brings up likely matches of screen shots as well!



I wasted quite a few bits of down time at work making some of my favorite (if obscure) quotes into memes. And several of our friends joined in on Facebook. It was an afternoon of hilarity. I love when the internet produces something genius that seems custom made for you!

Day 35 (Thurs. Feb. 4): My new boss.

I couldn't really post a picture of him or anything, so I used frinkiac.com to make a meme of my favorite "great" boss from The Simpsons, Hank Scorpio (of course, he turns out to be a supervillain, but that's beside the point ...)



I've had a new boss for about a week, and I love it! It's night and day with my old boss, who meant well but always made me feel awkward and weird and insecure. This new guy is really upbeat, really nice and encouraging, and really happy to defer to me on things (he just started so I know way more about our clients than him). He actually did say something like "I don't think of myself as your boss." Such a Hank Scorpio thing to say! So yeah, needless to say, I have high hopes that my job I'm already really happy with is going to get even better.

Day 36 (Fri., Feb. 5): Cofftea (our made-up term for it)

I have mixed emotions about loving this stuff, which we found at the pan-Asian supermarket. It's instant coffee, tea and non-dairy creamer all in one. It cannot be good for me, but damn is it good! I don't have it often because we don't get to that store very frequently. Friday I worked from home to nip a cold in the bud (it worked!), and treated myself to the last packet of coffee-tea in the house. Such a delicious, comfort-foody treat!



Day 37 (today, Sat., Feb. 6): My partners celebrating frugality

Today AS came back from grocery shopping to let me know she'd spent less than $4 at CVS for a box of cereal, 4 cans of clams and 2 boxes of crackers! She'd used a combination of sales and coupons and was really proud of herself. To top it off, I realized the cereal was good for a 50-cent credit on Ibotta!

NT came back from his half of the grocery shopping to let me know that the main-floor shower, which he thought it would cost about $50 to fix with new fixtures, actually only cost 49 cents! As you can see in the photo, a nice guy at the local hardware found just the right washer, and it fixed the leaky faucet so we now have a functional shower on the main floor. He was so proud of it, he made this HIS gratitude pic for the day, so naturally I just took a pic of his pic.