1. Morning walks with the dogs. It’s getting light so early, I don’t even need my headlamp — although that also means other people are out earlier and we don’t have the whole place to ourselves the whole time. Yesterday, there was a heron out hunting. We ran into him along the river and then again at one of the ponds. He was hunkered down, so at first the dogs didn’t see him. See if you can find him in this picture and you’ll understand why they missed him at first.

Can you find the heron?

2. Colorado sky. It really is amazing. Don’t believe me? I present these next two pictures from our walk yesterday morning as proof.

3. Ringo and Sam. Ringo is getting just enough more grown up that I can leave him out during my Wild Writing class and he mostly behaves himself, and he can hang out in the backyard by himself without me having to check on him every five minutes. This is about the time with any other dog that I’d start leaving him at home alone without crating him — not this wild man. Sam is currently hiding under my writing desk because I’m doing laundry and he’s convinced the washing machine is trying to murder us. I’m so glad that he’s doing okay after his tick bite, all healed up and not even any side effects from the antibiotics. I’m feeling extra grateful for their company, their good health today, because someone I adore and her sweet dog just found out he has lymphoma.

Little dude, big ears

Looking for deer

4. Working from home. As an introvert and a highly sensitive person, after four days in a row in my CSU office, I’m fried. The only way I can get any work done on a Friday is to do it from home, in my pjs, with my dogs sleeping somewhere nearby, with a nap break at some point. I’m so lucky that my job allows for it.

5. Good food. Egg sliders with homemade biscuits and fresh eggs from a friend’s chickens, breakfast for dinner with more of the same eggs, spinach on everything, San Pelligrino orange soda, dark chocolate, carrots, and avocado.

Bonus joy: that what was wrong with the Highlander was a fairly minor fix (the Big Rig is 15 years old with close to 200,000 miles now, so any time it goes in the shop, we know it could be something that means we are buying another new car instead of fixing it), enough flexibility in our schedules that five days with one car was workable, the smell of lilacs, my irises blooming, good tv, good books, such good humans in my Wild Writing class, getting a big project at work close to done, pay day, clean sheets.