When I was a senior in high school, I worked as a waitress at a family diner in Broadview. From 4:00 until 10:00, wearing a simple white polyester shift that zipped up in the front, I hopped from Formica topped table to table re-filling coffee cups and reciting the soup of the day list. When I’d get home, my father would be waiting for me at our kitchen table, wearing mismatching pajama tops and bottoms, ready to help me roll my shift’s booty (tips were usually given in quarters) into tasteless adhesive coated brown paper rolls.

It was a funny sort of ritual. I was so happy to get off my feet and my father seemed to be delighted with the thought that I was learning the meaning of money, i.e. working for the books and beer money I’d be spending as a college freshman the following year. I guess my dad appreciated that he had passed on some of his values to me. I think I liked having a special designated time to share with my father who was usually scarce around the house because of his own work commitments. And this ritual was not my only set activity of each evening.

Before I punched out at The Marquee each night, I had to top off five one-gallon plastic salad dressing tubs which we kept in the front of the house refrigerator under the order up window. These tubs were replenished from even bigger containers kept in the walk-in fridge in the back. It was always a challenge to wrestle with the oversized containers and manage not to spill anything. Near the end of the shift, I would also take the caps off our glass ketchup bottles, line half of them along the front counter then balance the remaining bottles on top of them, upside down, and let gravity do its work. We wanted to have the fewest number of full bottles possible ready to place at each booth the next day. This cosmic consolidation phenomenon may be one of the great mysteries of the universe, but the top bottles never seemed to fall.

My other requisite end of the evening task was to refill the salt and pepper shakers using a makeshift funnel, i.e., rolled sheet of paper. There was something mesmerizing about watching the shimmering white granules fill the squat little glass containers, and I think I actually looked forward to this chore.

I have been thinking about my daily duties at The Marquee lately as I have been thinking about this blog and my discipline of writing and posting reflections of appreciation. During the past month, I posted my 100th entry.

What’s so special about having a discipline? What is it about performing a task everyday that transforms the activity, or rather changes how you feel about the activity, from something you have to do to something you look forward to?

Yes, I have derived satisfaction from writing my blog entries. The scope of topics and the level of contemplation behind my first 100 posts represent a significant amount of time. I am also proud that I saw my thoughts through and worked through ideas until I had something tangible that other people could follow and could value.

Like filling the salt shakers at The Marquee when I was seventeen, I think I feel good about performing a task that allows me to do something else or helps me do other things better. Having full salt and pepper shakers or full containers of ketchup or salad dressing made it easier to host restaurant patrons the next day. Likewise, giving time to notice, reflect and clarify my thoughts of gratitude help me get in the right frame of mind to have a good day.

The biggest boon for me about keeping this blog, I suppose, is how the intention to write about things I appreciate causes me to identify more things that I am grateful for. Now, I am always on the look-out for things that may turn into blog posts. I may write about appreciation once a week, but now I notice more and more things I appreciate everyday – and that’s no small thing.