Monthly Archives: July 2015

Gratitude Friday

ringosquash1. Garden season. We are starting to get tomatoes and have enough zucchini to make all the breads, zucchini and black bean pancakes, and have some left over to share. What we don’t have (like strawberries and peaches or enough cucumbers), we can get from Garden Sweet — upick strawberries this weekend!

gardensweetberries02tomatoseason02 2. Eric’s hiking pictures. Especially the ones of the dogs.

traildogs riverdogs3. Sitting down with a good friend I haven’t seen in a long time. If you want to know how much you’ve changed (or haven’t), sit down with someone who knows you really well after not having seen them for two years and talk about what’s been going on.

4. Sitting down with a new friend I’ve never seen. I’m heading to a Containers for Connection: 10 Letters Project event in Denver tomorrow, and I get to meet, have dinner, hang out, and go to the event with my friend Kirsten Akens, who I haven’t yet met face to face. I already adore her though, so can’t wait to tell her to her face.

tapefoot5. Physical therapy. I have plantar fasciitis in my right foot, so painful, so debilitating even though it’s a relatively small part of your body. I started physical therapy, and even though the dry needling is a level of pain I’ve rarely felt, kept me on the couch with a heating pad all night, it feels better today than it has in months. Plus the cool tape job makes me look like a cyborg.

Bonus joy: teaching yoga, zucchini bread, being able to rest when I need to, soaking in the tub, seeing an end in sight to my current round of illness and injury, pay day, the peaches I’m going to use to make Georgia Peach bread, fresh cucumbers (so good!), the beginnings of a bathroom remodel, being able to afford a bathroom remodel, finding a really good designer to help.

bathroomremodel

Three Truths and One Wish

mebeach1. Truth: This summer hasn’t gone as expected. It got hijacked by illness and injury, the need to set clear boundaries and rest. Taking care of myself, things at work, and our house was where my effort was spent. All the things I’d intended to do didn’t happen, had to wait.

2. Truth: I’ve learned a lot about boundaries and limits. My mind is overly optimistic about what’s possible, and my heart wants to give so much. I’ve had to accept that I can’t go as fast as I’d like to, do everything I want. I also understand that it’s okay, even necessary to tell others what is enough, to tell them no, that they won’t like it but that doesn’t matter if it’s what I need.

3. Truth: This summer shifted my rhythm. I have a sense of all the things that need done, all the stuff I’d like to do, but instead of going on attack, pushing through the day, I ease into it. I consider “what’s next?” in a much gentler way, more easily let go of what’s not going to happen.

Bonus truth: I love my little life, my sweet house and my tiny family. This space, the love, the comfort are home.

One wish: That we can bear witness to all the struggles and need, our own and those of others, and do what we can without doing too much.