1. I have around 22 weeks of work left at CSU. I had a conversation yesterday with someone about taking over a particular project, filled them in on the history of the situation, and something about that made leaving my job at CSU feel real. The closer the end gets, the more and more certain I feel that this was the right thing to do, that the only hope of me staying had passed almost a decade ago.

2. Practice. It is the thing that keeps me going.

When dog therapy and yoga use the same space

Sam, “helping” me meditate

3. Winter food. Don’t get me wrong, I miss my summer garden, but in this cold, dark time of year citrus and things like apple pie and chicken pot pie sustain me.

Apple pie oatmeal. One part oatmeal, one part apple pie, all smushed together

4. Christmas cactus season. Which we actually need to call something else, since they start blooming around Thanksgiving.

5. My three boys. They are my favorite.

There’s a heating vet under our kitchen sink where Ringo likes to hang out when it’s cold

“Can we haz some lunch?”

Bonus joy: good books (finished Children of Blood and Bone and started Heart Berries), good TV (finished Inside Jokes and started season two of Ms. Maisel), good music (the Furns have a new album out), good movies (Eric and I finally saw A Star is Born and even he cried a little at one point), snow, our new mattress holds heat so well we haven’t even had to put the winter blanket on, teaching yoga, aqua aerobics, clean water, heat, electricity, my “new” car, my “new” bathroom, slippers, a soft thick purple bathrobe, being able to ask for what I want, being here for Eric’s birthday (for the past five years, I was away on retreat), getting the laundry done on Friday.