Gratitude Friday

iloveyoubecause1. Eric. He made me this. On every slip of paper inside he wrote something he loves about me. He’s also been calming me down all week about Ringo’s foot — he was running around the backyard like a wild man and stubbed his toe so hard he cut it. I have so much anxiety about anything that happens to the dogs after losing Obi and Dexter to cancer, the smallest thing seems like an emergency, and Eric does such a good job of keeping me from losing my mind — in this and everything else.

2. Ringo and Sam. I’m so grateful that even though Ringo cut his toe, he can still walk on it and isn’t messing with it and it doesn’t seem to hurt — in fact, he doesn’t act like there’s anything wrong at all, doesn’t understand what the fuss is all about. I’m so grateful that he and Sam play so happily together. I’m so grateful that Sam’s health is good and he’s so sweet.

"Can we haz a treat?"

“Can we haz a treat?”

Ringo fell asleep waiting for Sam to give him a turn with the toy.

Ringo fell asleep waiting for Sam to give him a turn with the toy.

3. Feast and the Open Heart Project and the Daily Dharma Gathering, the way that they all work together for me.

4. The Self-Compassion Saturday project, and the ways it keeps on going. Psychology Today posted a link to Barb Markway’s article about it from last year on their Facebook page (which has 5.4 million followers!), so even more people are getting to see it.

morningriverreflection

5. The Colorado sky, the Poudre River, getting to see the sunrise while I’m out walking the dogs.

Bonus Joy: lunch with friends, reading, having methods to work with my anxiety, laughing with Eric, fun stuff to work on, emails from my mom, pictures of people’s cute dogs and cats and kids on Instagram, the foot of snow that’s on its way here, the promise of rest.

Something Good

1. Living Gently: 11 Things that Bring me Back to Center on Elephant Journal.

2. Quote of the Week from Introvert, Dear.

For introverts who have a high level of internal activity, anything coming from the outside raises their intensity level index quickly. It’s kind of like being tickled—the sensation goes from feeling good and fun to ‘too much’ and uncomfortable in a split second. ~Marti Olsen Laney

3. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo on decor8. The house is so dreamy.

4. Your writing prompt: How do you give yourself the space necessary to create? from Paul Jarvis and many others on Medium.

5. Infographic: Here’s Why Science Says We Need to Have More Self-Compassion on Happify Daily.

6. Good stuff from Be More With Less: 10 Ways to Lighten up for Love and How to Make Money with a Blog.

7. book stack tuesday : the recovering body by Patti Digh.

8. The Authentic Expert, Episode #11: Be An Online Course Superhero (with Andrea Scher).

9. So. You Wanna Lose Weight. from Sara Seinberg.

10. What I Learned From My (Spectacular Failure of a) Whole30.

11. The Alphabet of Right Now on A Design So Vast.

12. Ballet Dancer Sergei Polunin Simply Slays Hozier’s “Take Me To Church.”

13. Authenticity is a Moving Target from Meg Worden. I wish everyone in the world would read this.

14. What Do Calories Count? from Sadie Chanlett Avery.

15. Good stuff from Seth Godin: “I just made a fool of myself” and The enemy of creativity…

16. Blog Trends: The Power of Newsletters, another in a great series on decor8.

17. Shared on Positively Present Picks: 67 short pieces of advice you didn’t ask for and Random Acts of Kindness: 76 Not so Random Acts of Kindness that Will Make You an Everyday Hero.

18. Shared on Something for the Weekend: Pea and Spinach Pesto Pasta recipe and Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir No. 1.

19. U.S. Marine reunites with combat dog. *sob*

20. Allowing Myself, one of my regular reads.

21. The Art of Breakfast: a film about Danny Gregory.

22. NEeMA – Elsa’s Lullaby.

23. Great! Another Thing to Hate About Ourselves. From Sports Illustrated, the Latest Body Part for Women to Fix on The New York Times.

24. I’ve been parodied from Sarah Wilson.

25. Wisdom from Anis Mojgan, “My heart was too big for my body, so I let it go.” (Thanks to Andrea Gibson for sharing).

26. 5 Ayurveda-Inspired Ways to Truly Love Ourselves on Elephant Journal.