Gratitude Friday

1. Clean bookshelves. Organized and dusted, with about 15 bags of books removed, half for donation and half for trade. I didn’t really mean to take on this project today. It started with just three books that I was getting ready to take to trade, which led to checking for others, which led to cleaning and completely reorganizing the whole shebang.

image by Eric

2. Play date. Pancho is only five months old and he’s already bigger than Ringo, but not quite as big as Sam yet. It’s good to have another dog the boys can play with, and the bonus for me is I love Pancho’s mom so it’s like a play date for me too.

3. Summer fruit. Upick strawberries at Garden Sweet, watermelon, and peaches.

4. Good mail. I love having pen pals who write real letters that make me want to answer back immediately, that are so intimate it feels like they were sitting right there talking to me.

5. Glazed lemon zucchini bread with raspberries. Even better when there’s enough to share.

Bonus joy: finally working out the details of something really exciting I’ll tell you about on Monday, enough vegetables to share, dogs who just got baths, Ringo getting so grown up he can lounge in the backyard without me having to watch him every second, Sam’s coat turning purple red like it does every summer, Eric being able to walk the dogs when my foot hurts or it’s too hot for me, solar tunnels letting light into a few of the dark spots of our tiny house (we keep thinking we left the light on, now I want to put them everywhere), finalizing plans to get started on our bathroom remodel, having the energy to spend a whole day cleaning, being able to let go, physical therapy, soaking in the tub, napping, laughing, jasmine rice, hummus with cucumber and sweet potato chips, sleeping in, air conditioning.

1. Garden season. We are starting to get tomatoes and have enough zucchini to make all the breads, zucchini and black bean pancakes, and have some left over to share. What we don’t have (like strawberries and peaches or enough cucumbers), we can get from Garden Sweet — upick strawberries this weekend!

2. Eric’s hiking pictures. Especially the ones of the dogs.

3. Sitting down with a good friend I haven’t seen in a long time. If you want to know how much you’ve changed (or haven’t), sit down with someone who knows you really well after not having seen them for two years and talk about what’s been going on.

4. Sitting down with a new friend I’ve never seen. I’m heading to a Containers for Connection: 10 Letters Project event in Denver tomorrow, and I get to meet, have dinner, hang out, and go to the event with my friend Kirsten Akens, who I haven’t yet met face to face. I already adore her though, so can’t wait to tell her to her face.

5. Physical therapy. I have plantar fasciitis in my right foot, so painful, so debilitating even though it’s a relatively small part of your body. I started physical therapy, and even though the dry needling is a level of pain I’ve rarely felt, kept me on the couch with a heating pad all night, it feels better today than it has in months. Plus the cool tape job makes me look like a cyborg.

Bonus joy: teaching yoga, zucchini bread, being able to rest when I need to, soaking in the tub, seeing an end in sight to my current round of illness and injury, pay day, the peaches I’m going to use to make Georgia Peach bread, fresh cucumbers (so good!), the beginnings of a bathroom remodel, being able to afford a bathroom remodel, finding a really good designer to help.