thankful thursday # 29.

this blog post is going to sound really strange.  i might sound like i'm complaining or being unthoughtful or something.  but i am truly so incredibly grateful.

you may not know what i did before we moved to birmy - i was a portfolio manager for a trust department.  that is just a fancy way of saying i invested rich people's money.  i helped them decide how to invest, i made the specific investing decisions, i sent each trade to be invested.  a huge part of my job was keeping up with the news.  i needed to know what was going on in the world every day & how that affected investments.

when i started in may 2007, the dow was above 13,000.  i watched it get above 14,000.  & then i lived it falling into the 6,000s.  i lived it.  falling.  everyday. 

it sucked.  i know that over the long run the stock market is one of the best ways to invest your money...blah blah blah.  but when you read it every day, watch it fall every.single.day, it is hard.  I {only time i will use a capital "I"} was losing my clients' money.  it wasn't my fault but it felt like it was.  it was really hard.

so my husband encouraged me to find something to do i loved, that would allow me to be in a good mood at the end of the day.  & that part of my life you know & read every day!

watching the economy, the market start to do what it did three years ago - i could not be more thankful that i am not in that world again.  that i am not living & breathing it every day, again.  yes, it still affects my life.  but it isn't the every day kind of way.  it isn't the "oh, good, you haven't jumped out of the window" kind of way. {not a funny joke.  ever.}

i am so incredibly thankful. 

so thank you to everyone who is living & breathing it.  i wish you so much luck.  i encourage you to not let it get you down & to leave it at the door when you walk out of work.  we'll get through this.  we always do.  it will not be a financial armageddon.  or even if it is, we'll get through that too.  we did last time.

off i am this morning to bake some cupcakes.  the biggest problem in my work today will be what kind of cookie should i make or why wont this dough do what i want it to do or oh, crap, this doesn't taste that great.  & i am thankful for all of those problems today.

i hope you can think of something for which you are thankful today.

love love,
kjp.