Gratitude Friday

1. Good food. Sweet potato and black bean quesadillas with sour cream, salsa, and avocado. Trader Joe’s dark chocolate peanut butter cups. Fresh pineapple. Tangerines. Smoked salmon with cream cheese on crackers. Snooze hashbrowns. Clean water.

2. Fresh snow. I tried to take a picture of it this morning while it was still dark out, and it looks like shooting stars.

3. Walking with Eric and the dogs. I’m still stupid happy that my foot is better, that I can walk with them. Napping and cuddling with them is good too.

Couching

4. Decluttering. This seems to be the time of year for it, but I’m also motivated because our next house project is refinishing our hardwood floors (finally — we pulled up the carpet 15 years ago and then were surprised by a kitchen renovation so the project was postponed), and it means moving stuff out of a whole half of our house for a week, which will be much easier if there’s less of it. We took a load to ARC from the garage last week, and yesterday I cleaned out the cereal/cracker/chips/cookie cabinet. Like I posted on Facebook, there was stuff in there that expired THREE years ago. There were four kinds of Triscuits, two kinds of Wasa crackers, and a huge unopened family sized box of Cheerios (neither Eric nor I remember buying these), ALL expired. There were various opened, partially eaten bags of things that when I pulled them out, the only memory I had of them were that they weren’t good, but knowing that in the past I’d still put them back in the cabinet and kept them. I threw three bags of expired, gross food in the trash, and recycled a ton of cardboard. There were even cookies in there that I’d forgotten about <– that alone is worth a whole post of its own — COOKIES I forgot to eat! This is huge people…

5. Another week of vacation. It’s always so lovely to take extra good care of myself, pay special attention to my tiny family, take time to sink more deeply into my life in a way that just doesn’t happen when I’m working at CSU.

Bonus Joy: good tv, good friends (smart and funny), being able to change my mind and say “no” even though I’d already said “yes,” a long marriage, going to the gym because I want to, feeling stronger, my new bathroom (yes, still), an Instagram feature that enables reporting comments as harassing or abusive, being able to block a number on my phone (I don’t know who you are and you should stop calling me if you aren’t going to leave a message), texting, heat, hot water, a washing machine that seemed to be losing its mind spontaneously going back to normal, the ability to make choices (seriously, how lucky am I that I get to even entertain the idea “what kind of new car do we want to buy?”), grocery shopping and laundry (yes, I like doing both).

1. A whole new year. It’s good to start over, to get another chance, to begin again, to let go and come back.

2. Supportive (and free) practice programs, such as Building a Mindful New Year (BMNY), a six day program from Susan Piver and Lodro Rinzler that just ended yesterday in which we focused practice and study on the six paramitas. What a nice way to spend that weird in-between time after Christmas but before New Years. Today I started 31 Days of Devotion, hosted by a teacher from BMNY, one of my favorite teachers Adreanna Limbach. The focus of a contemplation we did during our meditation this morning was “what do I feel devoted to this year?” (more on that in a later post). Both of these programs — rather than being more content I feel guilty about, more noise, another obligation, another thing on my should do list, something else to beat myself up about — are actually things that bring ease and clarity to my practice, add something that simplifies matters and creates space.

3. Ringo and Sam. We are in the golden years with these two now. Nobody is old or ill or dying, and no one is a baby. They need our care and attention, but it’s at a manageable, enjoyable level.

4. Eric. Buying me flowers, cooking for me, walking the dogs and taking them hiking, watching movies with me (we are going to see Star Wars today at the fancy theater), making me laugh, sleeping through the fireworks at midnight.

5. Marionberry jam. And butter, on toast.

6. Walking. A whole year ago my foot started hurting, five months ago I realized it was a thing and I needed to get it treated, four months ago I started physical therapy, two months ago I went to a podiatrist because it was only getting 90% better and I needed to do something else, and two weeks ago I got a cortisone shot in my foot. My routine for the past four months was this: Every morning the first thing when I get out of bed is a series of stretches. Next I put on shoes with special insoles, even though I’m still in my bathrobe, and I wear shoes all day long until I go to bed. Three times during the day, I ice and stretch my foot. Before I got to bed, I ice and stretch my foot one more time, and when I go to bed, I wear a splint on that foot. Every other day I do a series of strengthening and stretching exercises specifically to help that foot. Once a week I go to physical therapy — a combination of needling (so painful), electric stimulation, ultrasound, and massage, finishing with kinesiology tape. Finally, finally, finally my foot is better. It will take some time before I can walk the full nine miles in a day (six in the morning, three in the afternoon), but I can go three miles with no pain and that feels like some kind of a miracle. Yesterday morning, I got out of bed and both of my feet felt exactly the same, like totally normal feet.

Bonus joy: my new laptop, bran muffins with dried raspberries inside, clean water, my new bathroom (yes, still), good friends, the internet, a $45 repair for my cellphone (so I don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars buying a whole new one), heat, down blankets, wool socks, hot water, medicine, lotion, toothpaste, having choices, being able to say no, begin able to say yes, practice, writing, teaching.