It’s Giving Tuesday, which I’ve been reminded about for the past week from various organizations I’ve given or belonged to—or both—in the past. I did open my wallet to a couple groups, and I’d like to give more if the budget allowed. Alas, my dreams of becoming a professional philanthropist need financing. It’s also St. Andrew’s Day, a Scottish holiday that we quasi-recognized when we lived in Scotland many years ago now. Today I’m thinking about friends and family in Scotland who are recovering from the storm and wondering what we’d be doing if we still lived there. Speaking of winter storms, today we had the first sort-of snowfall of the season, with graupel falling from the sky for several minutes. Later, the sun came out and the temps warmed a bit. Good thing because I’m not ready for winter yet. Contractor team #2 finally finished the small decks that needed rebuilding (because of the rot) and will start on a garage storage project in a couple of weeks (better 4 months late than never). Meanwhile the tiling in the bathroom slogs along. They have 20 more days to finish everything.

I’ve been working later into the day than usual with my new job. A lot of people I need deadline things from work in a time zone 3 hours behind mine. So I went for my usual after-work walk during which I discovered someone near us has chickens in their front yard—four lovely Rhode Island Red hens! They have an A-frame shelter, but the foxes still patrol our neighborhood far and wide, and these hens would be pretty easy pickings in broad daylight. I’ll have to knock on their door and warn them. I returned from my walk and logged another hour at work. I’m going to have to figure this out so I can stop at 4 PM and not 6 PM. Today I got into a passionate discussion about the serial comma with a colleague: she’s anti and I’m pro. Neither of us realized how much our stance means to us, and it’s been a long time since I came across someone so anti about it. She’s probably thinking the same thing about me. It’s kind of comical, really. It made me think about the things I choose to hang onto. How do you determine whether an issue is the hill you want to die on? The company isn’t helpful either because every team has their own style guide—and most use the serial comma. Sheesh, I’m going to go to bed thinking about this petty thing!

Today’s gratitude: Being able to let long-held beliefs go, because who really cares about certain things?