1. Play date with Pancho. These two are such an odd couple, but since they’ve known each other since they were little, they play really well together. It doesn’t hurt that Pancho’s mom is one of my favorite people.

2. Sweet Sam. He doesn’t take part in the play date because he doesn’t appreciate the rowdy play, but he’s such a good boy.

3. Tea with good women. One I’d never met before, and the other I’m getting to know better after a long time.

4. Good food. I always share recipes I want to try on my Something Good list, and lately we’ve actually made a couple of them. The above is the Oven Baked Spicy Chicken Tacos, (buried under there somewhere). They were delicious. The Cheesy Zucchini Rice was good too. We’ve also been making gratins with our tomatoes.

5. Eric. Last week when we were texting and sending each other pictures, he said some really sweet things. He’s also been making me laugh this week, even though we’ve been having some hard conversations.

One of the pictures I texted Eric

Bonus joy: clean water, a warm shower, sitting in the backyard with the dogs, grass under my bare feet, seeing an owl on our walk, Wild Writing class, sleeping in, reading, good TV, my new car, yogurt with granola and berries for breakfast, garlic bread, working from home, walking with the dogs, grasshoppers, tiny yellow birds eating the sunflowers, a watermelon from our garden, the weekend, coming home from work and taking off my bra.

1. Our garden. This week we picked and ate our first watermelon and we are still getting strawberries. I especially love the view of the front garden from our bedroom window. I’m so glad we decided to convert the front into garden space instead of keeping the lawn.

2. A successful first week back at work. I am SO tired though, and my job just seems to keep getting bigger and bigger, even though I’m the same size.

3. Some good training sessions with the dogs. We have a private lesson tomorrow morning, and Ringo and I start our Canine Parkour class on Monday. I feel reasonably confident that we can do this.

4. Sam and Ringo. This week I realized that they love me as much as I love them, in the way that dogs love humans that is.

5. Eric. This week I started getting kitchen counter love notes again, which almost makes going back to work worth it. I also am loving all the cool pictures he’s been making with the Prisma app.

Bonus joy: free lunch, watermelon from our garden, a cold clean glass of water, a warm shower, clean sheets, weather cool enough that I have to put socks on, making people laugh, my new car, getting all the laundry done on Friday, walking with each dog alone rather than both of them together, going to bed at night and reading something good on my Kindle, ibuprofen, fresh peaches, peanut butter, texts from my brother, good friends that feel close even when I don’t get to see them that often, healthy babies, how my little friend Sam saw me today and wanted to crawl up in my lap, listening to a room full of English people (students and faculty) share their favorite words, the enthusiasm of freshman their first week on campus, the sidewalk repairs almost finished on our block, remembering to bring my umbrella on a day it rains, good poetry and the poets who write it, dresses with pockets.