Category Archives: Gratitude Friday

Gratitude Friday

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1. Rain. We’ve had a good amount of rain this spring, rain but not hail or big thunderstorms, and my garden and yard, the park and the river are all really happy about it.

2. Crowdfunding. In the past year or so, I have helped musicians get records made, writers publish books, documentaries get made, people without it get clean water, kids that might go without receive Christmas presents, and even cancer patients pay for their treatment. I love crowdfunding so much. I love us and our big hearts, our kindness and good intentions, our willingness to help. Here are two projects just recently completed, with rewards on their way to me, an album and a book.

3. Collaboration. I have a project I’m going to officially announce tomorrow in a post that will introduce it in more detail, Self-Compassion Saturday. There are an amazing group of wise and compassionate teachers, writers, healers, and artists who are going to help me consider some important questions I have about self-compassion. It is the most beautiful thing, and I can’t wait to share it with you. I am humbled by the ways these women are gracing me with their wisdom and kindness, their willingness to share, beginning with the simple act of saying yes.

4. Peonies. I planted three this year, but I am already thinking I’m going to need more. N e e d.

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. ~Iris Murdoch

springpeonies

5. Nature. How green everything is right now, how full and fast the river and blue the sky. How at an English Department retreat on Wednesday, we were visited first by a deer, then a pair of wild turkeys, and finally a baby deer — and when I say baby, I mean JUST born, still wobbling around on its shaky legs attempting to learn to walk. And there was a moment of sadness, that tender sadness present in everything, when we spooked his mom and she ran, but he was too unsteady to catch up to her, and I imagined his desperation, “Mom, wait!” *sob*

one of the turkeys in question

one of the turkeys in question

Bonus Joy: Another week with Dexter. An extra special bonus was that he slept in bed with us two full nights in a row. He’d slept with us every night for seven years, but when we got Sam, Dexter “got his own apartment” and started sleeping in various other locations throughout the house. Sam has recently made some similar shift into adulthood, and begins each night by sleeping for a few hours in his crate, which is in another room. I’m thinking something about this makes Dexter feel more comfortable getting in with us. I don’t care why, I’ll take what I can get.

Big D, Little D, and Dexter’s tomato plant

Gratitude Friday

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lilacs

1. Spring. The green of it, the bird song, baby foxes, blooms, gardening, cool weather and rain, warm weather and sun, sitting in the backyard with the dogs and a book, the rush of the river full and fast with melting snow, the long summer stretching out ahead of me.

This is best picture I could get of the three fox kits — they were playing with some small bodied animal they’d caught, running and pouncing, wrestling and chasing each other so that almost every picture came out a blur, and I could only ever capture two of them at a time.

2. Pie. Yesterday I bought a blackberry and raspberry pie at our local market made by My Mom’s Pies, and it was delicious. Oh my. Pie. *sigh*

3. Beaver’s Market. The local market I referred to above. It totally reminds me of the store where/when I grew up, Ditter’s Store, a small neighborhood market. They are about the same size, and both well known for their meat counter and local products. I don’t buy all my groceries there because they are too small to have a very good produce section, but I go as often as I’m able.

4. Love bombing. Writing a post or a letter that offers support and comfort, buying someone a cup of coffee, having a conversation, really listening, following my first thought, my instinct, my gut, the call of Big Love, being able to spread love, ease suffering. And it goes both ways — I got love bombed this week too, a surprise package in the mail and a “voice mail” that included a ninja poetry reading and a lovely soundtrack.

embodymentmail

5. New tires on my car. To be able to buy them without having to worry about how to pay or how we are going to afford it. To have a husband willing to go take care of the purchase for me, who takes care of me in a million other ways.

Bonus Joy: Another week with Dexter. He’s still happy to be here, loves to eat and take walks and bark at stuff and play and roll around or just lounge in the backyard, all the things that make Dexter who he is. However, his nose is bleeding more frequently and there’s been lots of sneezing and general stuffiness, causing me enough concern that I postponed my trip to Oregon to visit family. Dexter is welcome to stick around as long as he wants (when diagnosed, he was given 2-3 months and it’s been almost 11), I’m even putting a cherry tomato in the back garden so he’ll have his own plant if he’s still around, but we won’t keep him if his suffering gets to be too great. Until then, I am enjoying every minute, filled with love and gratitude for our life together.