Category Archives: Sam

Gratitude Friday

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This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

1. Tiny spring flowers. How do they get them so small?! There are two huge beds of them as you enter from the south side of campus by the parking garage at CSU, tiny daffodils and tulips and a few others I can’t even name, all in miniature but such bright color, such big joy in my heart when I see them. I know the picture above looks like a regular sized daffodil, but it’s full bloom was no bigger than a quarter.

2. Susannah Conway is going to be at World Domination Summit in July, and so am I! She’s proposed a session called “Writing from the Heart” and I hope it gets enough votes to run, but at the very least, I am going to be able to tell her in person, right to her sweet face, how much I adore her. It was on my Mondo Beyondo list to do just that some day, and it looks like it’s going to happen.

3. Eating clean and drinking juice. After two weeks of this, I cannot tell you how good I feel, not just physically but emotionally. My brain works better, I am happier, I have more energy. So simple, so profound.

4. Spring. I know, I know…blah, blah, blah. But, I can’t help but mention it again–the weather, everything budding out and blooming, sitting in the backyard reading, watching Dexter roll in the grass and Sam chase the squirrels. Although, this is Colorado, so Spring weather this week meant it was 80 degrees on Sunday and snowing on Tuesday.

5. This week, I got the best (and most surprising) compliment: she called me “positive.” After years of struggling with anxiety and depression, thinking of myself as moody and dark and disgruntled, it makes me so happy that people are noticing and appreciating the change, the shift in me.

6. WILD. My writing group met today, and we had so much fun, even made Full Moon Dreamboards together. I adore those women.

7. Laurie Wagner’s Telling True Stories. Class officially starts on Monday, but there’s lots of prep happening already, lots of anticipation and excitement. To add to my own personal hysteria, I just found out that Andrea Scher, author of Superhero Journal, and teacher of Mondo Beyondo (the course that started it all for me) and Superhero Photo is going to be there too! I owe Andrea so much gratitude, that even after nine months, I still haven’t worked out quite how to communicate it–it’s just too much.

Day of Rest

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Today on Facebook, I joked “There’s a ‘Stop Time’ button on my oven. I’d probably use it, if it worked in the way I wanted it to. An eternal lazy sunny Spring Sunday? Yes, please!”

I wasn’t completely joking. I would like days like today to last a lot longer.

Eric and I were sitting in the backyard with the dogs, and he looked up and said, “the sky is so blue right now.”

He was right.

Later, he and the boys went inside, him because he wanted to take a nap after a long hike this morning, and them because when you’re wearing a full body fur suit it’s too hot to lounge in the sun for too long, and they also wanted to take a nap.

I grabbed my camera and went looking for signs of Spring in our backyard.

My lilacs went from tiny leaf buds just last week to full leaves, with blooms that look like fruit, some kind of grape or berry. The white one on the far right is going to once again be covered in blooms.

When I came back out to take pictures, look who followed me.

On this day of rest, I hope that you are noticing your own signs of Spring, new growth, fresh air, space, softening, a new beginning. I hope that your day has a feeling of endless ease, of time stopped, of contentment–whatever that might look like or mean for you.