1. 14 days left at CSU!!! Yes, I have officially started counting days rather than weeks. After being in this space with these people doing variations of this work for 19 years, I’m now down to only 14 more days. It feels great and awful, exactly right and weird. It’s also like a break up where even if it’s mutual, there’s some grief for the thing that’s ending. And I know how things go for me: any big change, (and this one is major), leaves me unsettled for the next three years. It has always taken me that amount of time to make the full shift, to complete the transition, so this isn’t actually “over” in 14 days. All that said, I’m ready to begin.

2. I got my car back!!! Seriously, it seems like some kind of miracle. One extreme hailstorm, four months, and $10,000 worth of repairs later — just in time to get my snow tires taken off. It’s weird how many people heard the amount of repairs required and thought they should have just given me a new car. Um, it’s only two years old and still worth $30,000, WHY would they scrap it and give me a new one?! That makes no sense.

3. Morning walks. Eric found a den of fox kits that I haven’t gotten to see yet, so that’s my mission the next few mornings I walk — find the fox puppies and see them for myself.

4. Taking care of myself. I am very lucky to have the time, the support, and the resources to be able to do what I need to do for the places that hurt.

Relaxing with some heat and “stim” after physical therapy

5. My tiny family. They are the best, my favorites.

Bonus joy: a smart and kind physical therapist, aqua aerobics, sitting in the sauna, my infrared heating pad, writing with Chloe’ and Mikalina, clementines, everything turning so green, the sound of birds singing in the morning, computer glasses, reading in bed at night while Eric and the dogs sleep, wearing pajamas all day, having all the laundry done by lunch on Friday, lunch, fresh bread, sushi, good TV (finished Special on Netflix and started Ramy on Hulu), poetry, my daffodils coming back when I was worried they wouldn’t, coffee with Carrie, laughing with Eric.

1. Spring. It’s officially here. I looked out into our backyard just the other day, the sliding glass door open because it was nice and sunny outside, and said to Eric, “our yard is so green!”

An older picture of my desk, back when it was a lot cleaner

2. Only 3.5 weeks left at CSU!!! Every once in a while, I catch myself thinking I maybe made a mistake quitting, that maybe I could have made it work, and then I immediately laugh because that’s just ridiculous. And then I have a day like yesterday where I worked SO hard, did so many good things, and then someone was shitty to me, and I thought “May 15th can’t come soon enough.” The only other time in my life when I gave myself permission to do what was absolutely right for me no matter what other people thought or whether or not it even made sense was when I moved to Colorado to be with Eric, so I think it’s safe to trust myself this time too. Can you imagine how awesome it will be if this turns out as good as my marriage?!

3. My last module of my 500 hour yoga teacher certification. It’s the vinyasa module, which everyone had told me was hard, but I’m really loving it so far. If you don’t know, to become certified to teach you do a 200 hour training, which is like getting your undergraduate degree. Then, if you want to keep going, you can do the next 300 hours and become 500 hour certified, which is like having your Master’s degree. You can go on to do another 200 and become 700 hour certified, but most people I know get 500 hour certified and then specialize in something. For me, that’s yoga for people in bigger bodies, adaptive yoga, and restorative yoga. I’ll have to teach a capstone at the end of this module that incorporates something from all the modules for this 300 hours, and I’m actually looking forward to it even though it’s a lot. During this session, I am obsessed with taking myself out to lunch at Slyce Pizza Co.

The ducks are easier to spot, but can you find the heron?

4. Morning walks. It’s getting so light so early again. On Thursday morning, I only had to have my headlamp on for about 30 minutes, probably didn’t really even need it, and the sky was amazing. We’ve been seeing the heron fishing in the river almost every morning, and the ducks and geese are busy getting ready for babies. Every once in a while we see raccoons and foxes or a beaver, and the herd of white tailed deer are always around even if we don’t run directly into them.

Heron fishing. Can you see it?

I tried to get a picture of the moon, but the camera on my phone doesn’t capture low light shots very well

5. My three boys. The two with four legs who are covered in fur, and the one who leaves me love notes on the kitchen counter.

Sam taking a nap with me

Bonus joy: lunch with Aramati, coffee with Carrie, aqua aerobics, sitting in the sauna, sunshine, people saying nice things about me, good TV (this week it’s a season of Fixer Upper I hadn’t seen yet), good books, sort of new to me music (Sol Rising, whose tracks I’d heard before, but I didn’t realize how many full albums he had that I’d like and would make really good music for yoga classes), bran muffins with dried raspberries, getting the laundry done on Friday morning, physical therapy, robins hopping around on the ground, bird song in the morning, things turning green, a new puppy, saying goodbye to an old puppy — the way he stood there wagging his tail with a toy in his mouth before he gave up and got on his bed and insisted I pet his head for the entire hour long visit, how happy Ringo is when he finds something he can pick up and carry for part of the walk (this week it was an adult sized single ski glove and a stick), the way Sam always wants to be right where I am, how Eric gets mad when someone is mean to me, how good he is at cheering me up.