1. Morning walks. Once again, we had a week that was SO cold, the walks Ringo and I took were short, late in the day, and mostly close to home, and I didn’t take a lot of pictures. Ringo is in awesome shape for a 10 year old with arthritis, still runs with Eric and walks around 3-5 miles a day, but because he is getting older, we are being more careful with him, especially in the extreme cold.
Image by EricImage by EricImage by EricImage by EricImage by Eric
2. Staying inside, where it’s warm. A roof and four walls, a functioning furnace, good insulation, double paned windows, down blankets and pillows, slippers, hoodies, wool socks, an infrared heating pad, a warm shower, unlimited hot cups of green tea, and a dog who will cuddle if you have heat he wants to steal.
Sent Eric this picture and asked, “is being too cold a valid excuse to skip the gym?”His response did not surprise me…
3. Travel plans. I’m not actually a great traveler, would almost always rather stay home, but I will make exceptions. Today I bought a plane ticket to Oregon for next month to give my brother a break for a few days, a “caregiver respite.” It will also be his birthday week and it was the best present I could think of for him. He’s doing an amazing job taking care of our mom, but it’s A LOT. We also made reservations for a house in Waldport on the Central Oregon Coast at the beginning of the summer, one of our favorite places. We got the same house we stayed in three summers ago, because the view is so nice, it’s on a super quiet street, and there’s a yard and an awesome window bench where Ringo loved hanging out, (see pictures below).
4. Books, reading and writing them. Not gonna lie, it’s been super hard to make any headway on the book I’m writing, because…life, (*gestures to all the things*), but I’m not giving up. I organized the bookshelf next to my computer desk to hold my latest “to be read” collection because I was getting tired of moving the piles off my computer desk to my writing desk so I could use the computer, and then off my writing desk to my computer desk so I could write or make art (I have two tables next to each other that span the width of my space, one for the computer and one for the “handmade” work of writing & art).
Some art I made this weekThe piles in question
5. My tiny family, small house, little life. I was talking to my mom today and she was saying she keeps expecting my dad to just walk in the front door. I totally get that. I’ve been with Eric for 31 years, 27 less than my parents were together, ever since we were only 24 years old, just babies!, and I can’t even imagine life without him now.
Bonus joy: seeing a show at the Lincoln Center with Eric, sitting in the sauna with him, snow, texting with Chris and Chloe’, talking to my mom on the phone, sharing reels with Carrie and Shellie and Kari, training with Shelby and the gang, aqua aerobics, the sound of the dryer, music from the other room, practicing yoga at Red Sage, how much Ringo loves work/playing with his PT Teri and how awesome she is, starting a new notebook because it means I get to pick a sticker to put on the front, stickers, old fashioned ice cream sandwiches (ice cream between two graham crackers), good neighbors and their dogs, how every time the wind knocks over our Christmas tree in the front yard Eric puts it back up again, surprising my brother with my flight reservations, twinkle lights, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.
1. The Right Kind of Busy: Rethinking the cult of busynessfrom Culture Study. “The worst kind of busy makes you feel out of control. It’s defensive and brittle and terrified. It’s lonely; it dissembles. It’s also profoundly wearying — and yet it’s somehow addictive, too. The right kind of busy is indicative of a mind in touch with itself and in deep connection with others. It’s constantly recalibrating, re-examining, we rethinking: what’s enough? What should I do more, and what should I do less? It means having a calendar that’s at once full and with built-in flex. It breathes deeply and sleeps soundly. The right kind of busy is a feast.” In related news, Just because you can from Rita on her new Substack space, Rootsie. “I thought I had spurned productivity culture. I thought I had embraced simplicity and small-life living. I thought I had divorced worthiness from accomplishment. I was wrong.”
2. How Did I Change So Much, So Quickly?from Andrea Gibson. “This I now know for certain: I do all of growing during the times in my life when I am offering compassion to the parts of myself that have not yet grown. I never once managed to shame myself into a version of me I loved more (and trust me, I spent decades trying). As Meg says, “shame is never fertile soil for growth”. A better world is not created from a planet of people hating themselves, but hate’s opposite. Sweet community, I hope as you read this today, you can scan yourself, look deep within, and decide every part of you is good news.”
6. What Is Intuitive Eating? Meet the Duo Behind the Methodon The New York Times, (gift link). “Once considered radical, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole’s method of intuitive eating has become the cornerstone of the modern anti-diet movement.”
8. How to Heal After Narcissistic Abuse as an HSP. I’d love to believe that I’ve experienced this for the last time, but I thought that before I found myself in the same situation, again… *sigh*
9. How Do You Write a Book? “Jami Attenberg, Roxane Gay, Alex Chee, and other novelists explain how to write a book. The first trick is: You have to write a 1000 words every day. The second trick is: You have to have fun.”
10. The Four Best Light Therapy Lamps. As I get up before the sun rises, I use mine every day, even in this part of Colorado where we get so much sun.
17. 11 things after a deer sightingfrom Jena Schwartz. “The ephemeral nature of awe.” I love the list, but what I absolutely adore is the image and poem she shares at the end.
20. My Year of Writing Dangerouslyfrom Summer Brennan. “Last year I set out to write a ‘five things’ draft every day for 365 days. Here’s what happened next.”
21. The habits that have most improved your life. “The new year can be a fertile time for introspection. We asked Positive News readers: what habits do you swear by? From tried and tested rituals to more eccentric customs, this is what you said.”
26. The Case for Mediocrity. “I began to reevaluate my relationship with ambition and what I want from my work and life. And the truth I came to is this: mediocrity is a far better fate than misery.”
29. Best Comedy of 2023on The New York Times (gift link). “It’s time to stop taking Jim Gaffigan for granted, and more surprising takeaways from specials, stand-up sets and other funny moments this year.”
30. Slowerness. “Last week, as I willed myself away from doing more, I wrote out my new year’s intention: to practice slowerness.”
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 