The Ahwahnee hosts a number of special events during the off-season. Vintners’ Holidays is the first, and brings top wine-makers from around the country to showcase and give seminars about their wines. The event is capped with a gala dinner in the vast and sweeping Ahwahnee Dining Room, that, as one Vintner remarked is strongly reminiscent of the dining hall in Hogwarts (for you Harry Potter Fans) minus the owls.

And on Nov. 6, Tom and I got to go.

Couldn’t possibly market something that you don’t know, right? That was the previous excuse, but this time, I was selected to sit in front of a video camera because…?  Because I sit in the same cubby room as the guy who makes the decision about who sits in front of the video camera.  Too sweet!

Of course, dress up events aren’t exactly things that Tom and I participate in frequently, so there was a some stress leading up to the day of the dinner.  I borrowed a super cute outfit from my chic neighbor, Josie, right down to the shoes and matching purse.  Tom located the bag with the one suit that he owns, but was chagrined to find, the night of the dinner, that there were no shirts and only one dress shoe in the bag. The left one, I think.  We found a solid colored work shirt that was made passable with a few sweeps of an iron, and made a sheepish phone call to a similar-sized friend for shoes.

Vintners was amazing. Not being a real foodie, just playing one on TV, literally, I don’t have the rich foodie vocabulary to describe what I was tasting in terms of the food or the wine. But, I’ll tell you this much, a few Vintners’ Holidays, and a Chefs’ Holiday under my sleeve and I’ve gotten hard to impress. The presentation, and flavor is hard to beat.

There’s so much to know, about just the wines, or just the food, but there’s also something to be said for just pure enjoyment. In fact, another friend had the pleasure of sitting next to a real connoisseur, and he even recommended against analyzing the wines you really enjoy. Just enjoy them. And so we did. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

Think of all the things that I have to be grateful for.  Family. Friends. Health. Fun work, and great co-workers. Enviable lifestyle. I live in Yosemite National Park, after all. The list could go on and on.

Tom shared a great audio interview with the sucessful copywriter, Ted Nicholas , with me the other day. In addition to imparting other good technical and attitudinal advice for writing copy, Ted recommends developing an Attitude of Gratitude by starting each morning with being thankful.  He spends 15 or 20 minutes every day just to get started with a postitive mental outlook. He even writes them down in a list and strives to add at least one new thing every day. Who, after all, can write powerful, moving copy when grouchy, dispirited, and dissatisfied?  And even if I don’t plan to write anything, who wants to be grouchy, dispirited and dissatisfied, anyway?

I stumbled on (that’s a little S) a great blog, called Zen Habits just before I heard the Ted Nicholas interview, and one of the first articles I read there was on ways that being grateful can change your life for the better. Would taking the time to remember how lucky you are to have a person in your life change the way you treated them on a daily basis? How about remembering the the huge favor your co-worker did for you, before you confront them about a mistake they made? Would it change the tone of the conversation?

I haven’t started making a list of things that I am grateful for yet. But I carry the thoughts around in my head, and it makes a difference.

It’s been a day full of celebration.

This morning Tom and I woke in Yosemite West to a fresh dusting of snow on the ground. It seems like autumn was still just winding down, and here, suddenly was winter. We trade one kind of beauty for another quickly this year. We grabbed cameras and ran outside to take pictures on the way to work. I love the snow on what is left of the brightly colored dogwood leaves.

We stopped twice on the way down to the Valley to admire the view again. Nevermind that this is just “the regular commute”, sometimes it is so beautiful that it is a crime not to stop. I love the way that the clouds settle around the trees and cliffs when storms clear here. At Tunnel View, we even had a chance to brag to a guy from JPL at CalTech about where we lived.

We drove to the polling place on the way to work and dropped off our ballots. A historic election, and it feels good to be looking forward to a cool-headed Dem. in the White House again. Being TV-less, we listened to the live broadcast of the campaign over the internet, and had a nice little celebration when the result was announced.

We still haven’t managed to achieve some of the unnecessary parts of our house, like painting the trim or 3,000 other things, but we did finally manage to get our parking meter installed. Now we can start making some money off visitors.

We’re quite proud of our parking meter, one of the only ones, perhaps *the* only one in Mariposa County.

Thanks Mary!