jillsalahub

1. What Can You Do Once You’re Vaccinated? on The New York Times.

2. together on aisle 15 from Karen Maezen Miller. “We are and will always be saved by the grace of community, by human wonders and works, faith and fellowship, led from the bleak bondage of fear to the promised land of rest.”

3. The Holistic Trans Body Poster, a really great infographic that explains a lot.

4. 26 of the Best Narrative Nonfiction Books.

5. We Are All Fragile Creatures by Roxane Gay. “The Manufactured Moral Panic of a Free Krispy Kreme Doughnut.”

6. Hannah Gadsby on the “Comfort Cocoon” She Calls Her Clothes. “The comedian and writer decided to drastically minimize her wardrobe ‘because my sense of self is not defined by how the world sees me, it is defined by how I feel in the world.'”

7. How (and Why) to Welcome Insects Into Your Yard. “Gardening isn’t just about plants. It’s about the entire ecosystem those plants can support.”

8. Strawberry Shortcake Recipe. I can’t wait for strawberry season!

9. A thing about ‘normal’ from Seth Godin. So weird, because RIGHT before I saw this, I was thinking about the problem with “normal,” and how what is considered the norm is simply those with the loudest voice, the biggest platform, the most power claiming what they “like,” what they prefer, what makes them comfortable, and that’s not anywhere near the truth.

10. 4 Reasons Not To Kill Yourself (Read This First).

11. Good stuff from Lion’s Roar: Buddhism’s “Five Remembrances” Are Wake-Up Calls for Us All (“Perfectly clear, compassionate, and concise, the ‘Five Remembrances’ are Buddhism at its very best. Koun Franz explains”) and Let Your Heart Break (“In this excerpt from her book Steady, Calm, and Brave, Kimberly Brown offers a practice for letting your heart break when the weight of the world leaves you angry and overwhelmed”).

12. How to Manage Health Anxiety as a Highly Sensitive Introvert.

13. Our Love Is Nothing Like an Apocalypse, “the miracle” and “the optimism will not hold,” two poems by Emily Adams-Aucoin.

14. 35 Teachers In This Online Group Talk About Students They’ll Never Forget.

15. The Thirst Was Real For Ron Isley And His Beard After Isley Brothers’ Verzuz Performances.

1. Yard time. It’s that season again, when the weather is nice enough to sit out in the backyard, when everything is starting to turn green, the light lingers a little longer, and we start planning our garden. Last night, it was still light out at 7:15 pm and 62 degrees, and the sky was gorgeous.

2. Practice. I am struggling lately with my yoga practice, am wondering whether I’ll teach as much as I’d planned to when I can get back into a studio again if I can’t even manage to get myself on the mat (or maybe not teaching is why I can’t?), am in a strange liminal space with it, avoiding and resisting and wondering why but letting it be okay for now. That said, my writing practice is going strong, fed by the class I’m currently taking with Natalie Goldberg, which has also inspired me to reread all her books. Some days, I write for hours, and I feel so much better when I do, cleared out and calm. I’m still working on my book and even though it feels good, there’s momentum there, it’s a steep learning curve — as in I’ve never written a book all by myself and have no idea what I’m doing.

3. Morning walks. Ringo was on restriction the first part of the week, had tweaked his back playing in the back yard and couldn’t go very far, but he’s better now. The other day, I decided not to go around the second pond, then this morning when they were out, Eric and Ringo went that way and saw an adult fox by the den that’s under one of the trees along the fence, which means there are babies, so now I’m on a mission to see them. There are five potential den sites along our various routes, and I’ll be checking them all.

4. Starting our garden. We are going to start the seeds we have this weekend, (you can’t really put anything new in the ground here until after May 15th). I saw a video of a daffodil farm on Instagram and I am now motivated to also get a bunch of new bulbs and plant thick rows along our fence in the backyard. Once we really get going, we’ll continue filling in the front as well and I’m planning to rework the narrow bed between our driveway and the neighbors yard. For reference, here’s some pictures of our front garden from last season.

5. My tiny family, my tiny house, my tiny life. I am looking forward to the weekend, to Eric getting some rest (he’s been working SO much), to cuddling and napping and walking and sitting in the sauna and reading in bed at night while Ringo and Eric sleep.

Bonus joy: laundry, writing and hanging out with Calyx, Wild Writing, all the people getting vaccinated, pay day, ladybugs, bird song in the morning, birds at the feeder, how fluffy and wiggly Ringo is after getting a bath, a warm shower, clean sheets, naps, reading, podcasts, good TV and movies, music, good neighbors, grocery pick up, a crisp Gala apple, the small “snack” cucumbers, naan, texting with my mom and brother and Chloe’, getting in the pool, Wendy coming home from the hospital, Chelsey getting to be with her mom when she passed, all the new puppies and babies, ordering pizza which means not having to cook for the next three days.