1. Practice. It keeps me sane, and as a teacher, it feels like something worthwhile I can share.

2. Fall color. Even when it’s competing in my backyard with an early trace of winter.

3. Kitchen counter love notes. It’s the best thing about coming home from work, that and how excited the dogs get. Oh, and being able to take off my bra.

4. Texting. Even when it means getting a picture of your boys, happy after a hike, when you are sitting at your desk working.

5. My tiny family. They saved me this morning — I was scheduled to sub a yoga class at 7 am, but somehow I got the dates mixed up in my head and thought it was next Friday, so I slept in this morning, but Eric came back from walking the dogs at 6:30 and woke me up, which gave me enough time to get to the gym and get set up, and I don’t think anyone even realized that I taught a class I planned right there on the spot. That last part is something to be grateful for too — to have taught yoga long enough and enough times that I can just show up and teach, no worries.

Bonus joy: Wild Writing, texting with friends, laughing with Eric, sweet potato and black bean quesadillas, sunshine, our new fence, no more yellow jackets or mice in our house, saying “no,” sleeping in, napping, clean sheets, our new bed, snuggling with the dogs, how worried Sam gets when I run the washing machine, how Ringo thinks he needs to yell at anyone he can see from our front window no matter what they are doing or who they are, a thin soft wool sweater, computer glasses, my Kindle, aqua aerobics.