Since my blog and creative work often lean toward the dark and gloomy, I thought this blog hop might be a lovely chance to show, and also remind myself, that there are still things to be grateful for. So this is my very first entry for the Ten Thing of Thankful (TToT) blog hop which can be found here which I accidentally found while sneakily snooping around on the blogs of the Six-Sentence stories family.
Ten Thing of Thankful #1
First – coffee. Gosh, the best beans in the world. No, I mean it seriously; it’s one of the only reasons I come out of bed willingly at all. Which leads to...
Second – my bed. My spouse often calls me nicknames such as bedbug or burrito because even when I’m doing university work at home-home, or writing, I sit on the bed with my laptop.
Third – my Tallinn family. Though this may sound like a strange name, I’m renting a room from one amazing couple while I study at university, since my home is in another city. They are very sweet, and I’ve already found myself thinking of them as family.
Four – my laptop, which is the most expensive gift I have ever accepted outside of my blood family. My spouse got it for me for university. It was used and all, but it works really well, and I can also play all my computer games on it if I need to—but more importantly, I can run several virtual machines on it for some school courses (System Administration at TalTech).
Five – music. I can’t imagine life without it, or who I would be if I wasn’t a nerd for consuming and collecting merchandise from the artists I admire and love and… uh. Just take my money. Which leads to—
Six – there is one good thing about our government: I’m on a government stipend currently, which allows me to study full-time and still buy food and perhaps wine every now and then, lol.
Seven – grapes. Without grapes, there would be no wine, and with no wine I would be a sad little girl… probably consuming the blood of those who wronged her, lol… or something…
Eight – the blog hop community. I was away for a long time, but is it bad to say that writing seems to keep me grounded and keeps the softer part of me intact while I’m studying to be logical and… correct, or whatever you would call it…? And there are so many cool little stories to read every week, and—uh—why did I ever disappear… ugh…
Nine – chocolate… absolutely love that sh*t. Funnily, when I ate it as a kid, I would get red dots all over my skin and sometimes even asthma, so I wasn’t allowed to go near chocolate until I was around 10. And then, when it stopped causing serious issues (well… it still makes my ears red), I was never able to stop myself from eating it.
Ten – warm baths. I just had one for around two, maybe two and a half hours… or something like that. I just disappear when I go there. So soothing and relaxing and… uhh. If I could, I would take baths, listen to music, and drink wine while reading or scrolling for eternity.
Uhh, this was a bit different from my usual entries, wasn’t it. Well, in life people think I’m goofy, and those who only read what I write think I’m gloomy—but I guess that kind of duality does exist in me. That was a cool blog hop. Very different from the usual… or so. Thanks (did I just turn my ending note into an 11th bonus or something?).
Perhaps I could invite you to read more of my work:
If you like short stories I have them scooped up into one category (including the six-sentence stories).
Or perhaps I could interest you in poetry and refections or something more personal like the Blog.
I also happen to own an IT studies blog in Estonian and "Chaos in Spring" can be listened to on YouTube, Spotify and other streaming services.
Welcome to the TTOT! Glad you found us!
Tallinn, as in Estonia? My husband and I visited Estonia last year, and we loved it. Such a beautiful country, and resilient people. We definitely could have spent more time there.
(It’s always OK to have 11 items on your TTOT.)
Hope to “see” you again!
Thank you and am glad I found it too. Such positive vibes…
and yes, Tallinn and Estonia is one of a kind. If you ever decide to come back then perhaps the islands and some other towns ;).
i enjoyed reading your ten immensely…. my bed i had to laugh…. i finally bought a bed and it’s the best ever… seriously…. and of course, chocolate… yep… always get into trouble with chocolate… ate it like a junkie… even before i got home… as soon as i got in the car ate it like i had to… great ten… my first time too….
Am glad you enjoyed it… yes, the bed, congratulations, am sure it’s the best… and it seems like we are both chocolate junkies.
Thanks for stepping by.
I am with you on #10 – my Sunday morning treat – breakfast and a book in the bath! What are the “virtual machines” you run?
Same here… perfect Sunday treat. I’m basically running Linux inside VirtualBox for my studies. It lets me create multiple virtual computers on one machine (like Ubuntu servers and other setups), so I can experiment without affecting my main system which is called the host.
The first proper PC I owned, ran on Windows 95, and I discovered too late, that it gets buggy and you have to partition your disk sa as to create an image of the system which you can reinstall as required. So I understand the principle of what you are doing but I am glad I don’t have to dive under the hood so much these days. I have been wrestling to learn Microsoft Power Automate which is as near programming as I want to go. You watch a video and it is 4 years old and the programme has changed and then if you watch another you find yet another way of tackling the issue 0 aarrrggghhhh…
Yeah, win 95, I remember being a little kiddo and my family friend brought us out first computer.
Next thing I remember was my sister’s husband building me one and as a very active kid I was there with my fingers pointing at things “what’s this”.
I guess it’s curiosity that got me into IT.
And yeah, some YouTube tutorials are just not it. Haha.
So lovely to read your 10 things for this week. I hope your studies go well, and your supply of chocolate is endless.
🙈🙈🥰 see. Thank you and am giving my best.
“Thanks (did I just turn my ending note into an 11th bonus or something?).
Yes, yes you did!
We have something called ‘the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) her at the TToT. And, harbinger of good things I’d hazard, your bonus grat balances with my Number 10 Grat.
cool
Welcome to the TToT!
“I thought this blog hop might be a lovely chance to show, and also remind myself, that there are still things to be grateful for You’d might be surprised (or not) how many of us find, in these pages each week one of the coolest things about the blogosphere: identifying with people (in minor detail or broad-strokes) that one would never meet in the ‘real’ world.
the Hostinae (Mimi, Misky, Denise, Kristi, cai, Dyanne, Knitcat and Lisa) and Host Andrew are sources of info second to none.
Seeing how I’ve established that this is homework (lol) I will say: glad to have you join us this week. The thing I like is the variety in the oT lists each week. And not merely the grats, but presentations, inferences and all other things that come into one’s mind when sitting down to the electrical keyboard to list the people, places, things and events that elicit gratitude*.
Liked Grat #9 while chocolate is a transitory pleasure for me I liked how your Grat prompted me to look back and compare and contrast what mattered then and now. (Despite my sincerity I did not go on to adult life having ice cream and cereal for dinner every. single. day. ;p
*One of the things I enjoy the most about this ‘hop is that creativity is encouraged.
Oh wow, thank you for the lengthy comment and I think for the mere “positive vibes” effect writing this and also reading others’ posts this week gave me. I may continue participating, the community effect also feels great 😃.