1. Hanna Farm. It’s the name of our neighborhood, which in the 1800s was a farm where they raised rye and something else I can’t remember. This picture is the field at the end of our street. I love living here — so close to all the good parks and hiking, only about a mile from Old Town, only six blocks from one of my favorite humans, just down the road from Beaver’s Market, and super close to CSU (which doesn’t matter anymore since I don’t work there!).

2. Things that give me hope. I try to practice the Buddhist principle of letting go of both hope and fear, one pulling you into some imagined experience you believe will be exactly what you want and the other causing you to run away from something you think will be bad, both states pulling you out of the current moment, distracting you from what’s really going on, taking you out of your actual experience. That said, sometimes I need to hope. I read a line in a story in The Sun magazine yesterday that said, “just because it is all so very, very unfair does not mean there is not still great hope in the world” and it made me feel better about the state of things. Then there was a report of a swarm of ladybugs so big it registered on the National Weather Service radar, and then this morning in one of the ponds, this waterlily that typically produces 1-3 flowers has 11 blooms.

3. Morning walks. This morning will be our last along the river. It is rising because of snow melt and the flooding is predicted to be some of the worst this time around, but the real reason we’ll have to avoid this area until much later this summer is because of the mosquitoes.

4. The light this morning was extra special.

5. My tiny family. For some reason, I didn’t take many pictures of them this week.

Bonus joy: bird song in the morning, hummingbirds flying over our yard, my peonies getting ready to bloom, long naps, strawberries from our garden, hanging out with Mikalina and Chloe’, good TV, good books, good music, clean sheets, having nothing on my schedule so I can do whatever I want.

1. Lounging in the backyard. Right now is that magic moment in Colorado when everything is green and the sun is out, but it’s not too hot yet and the mosquitoes haven’t arrived. Maybe one day we’ll landscape our backyard a bit more beyond the three raised beds, the Golden Raintree, the clematis that covers one whole wall, and the roses we don’t really take great care of but they bloom anyway, but for now the green carpet is just fine for the dogs, all they really want.

2. Garden time! Eric has been working so hard on it — weeding, putting compost into all the raised beds, and planting. So far we have peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, and tomatoes. We’ll get basil once we can find somewhere with healthy plants, and I’d like to keep trying to find that variety of watermelon we planted that one year that did so well but we forgot to save the tag. I am excited about all the potential blooms on my peonies and for feeling a bit better (I’ve had a cold all week) so I can start planting some more flowers and help with the weeding.

The yummy watermelon in question

Worm bins and all the compost they made this winter

3. Good food. I’ve been obsessed with cucumbers, spinach, hummus, and falafel on naan bread. I also made biscuits the other night that were super yummy.

4. Epic naps. Since I’m trying to get over this cold, and the lingering burn out from work, I’ve been taking 2-3 hour naps almost every afternoon. It’s so obvious how badly I need the rest.

5. My tiny family. The above picture was from the other day, one of the first days it hadn’t rained, the sun was out and it was warm. At some point, all three of the boys got too hot and hunkered down in the shade.

There was a squirrel on the neighbor’s roof he was very interested in

“Can we haz some of your snack, Dad?”

Bonus joy: Wild Writing with Laurie, Chloe’ and Mikalina, Booksmart at the Lyric with Chloe’, not teaching yoga this week because I knew it was what my body needed to recover, good books (I’m almost done with There There by Tommy Orange), good TV (She’s Gotta Have It‘s second season was really good, and I liked Dead to Me), good movies (I just watched Always Be My Maybe on Netflix and really liked it), a warm shower, pay day.