Image by Eric

1. The Colorado sky. Today, sadly, it’s mostly gray. We are due a big windstorm later in the day, so hopefully that will clear out the crud.

2. Doing fun stuff with people I love. Lunch and a movie with Chelsey and Jon, dinner and a movie with Chloe’ and Claudia, breakfast with Carrie, a yoga class with Abrona, aqua aerobics and a chat with Janice, sitting in the sauna with Eric, watching “Father Brown” with Eric, laughing with Eric, walking and napping with the dogs, yoga with my Red Sage class, a fitness class with Paige and Beth, random texting with my brother.

3. Practice and therapy and moving my body and napping and eating what I want and napping and reading in bed at night while Eric and the dogs sleep. These are some of the things keeping me from giving up this week. I just reread this and realized I said “napping” twice, but since that is pretty accurate, I’m going to leave it like that.

4. Kindness and support from other people, even if we’ve never met IRL. I posted something on Instagram about having an autoimmune disorder and burnout and was immediately offered so much goodness by people, some of them who I’ve never even met in real life. It can sometimes seem like social media and the internet are a container for the worst of humanity, but it also holds the best of what we are.

5. My tiny family. The real reason we got a whole new sectional is so Eric can stretch his legs out all the way when he takes a nap, and he took full advantage of it before he had to go back to work this week. Sam is still doing better after tweaking his back, but we did have to put him back on a small dose of pain meds to give him a bit more time to heal. I’m so grateful for all the support for him we have access to living here in Fort Collins. This week six years ago we brought Ringo the dingo home. He was so cute and tiny and gray, but clearly part wolverine.

Bonus joy: Clementines, good books (I just finished Where the Crawdads Sing and started The Ghost Bride), good TV (a new season of Catfish), good music, good podcasts, getting the laundry done and put away a day early, the few days I had this week without any anxiety, a long nap when you are really tired, toast with marionberry jam, sleeping in, writing in the morning while drinking a cocoa coffee, blue sky, the softest pajamas, laughing with Eric.

Image by Eric

1. The Colorado sky. I love it so much because it’s blue so much of the time, but in the winter it is especially magical.

2. I’m still here. For real, this week was HARD. A dear friend got awful news, Sam hurt his back worse than we thought, Eric’s mom ended up in the hospital, and we dealt with a few other things I won’t talk about here, (don’t worry, Mom, I’ll email you all about it later today). Thank goodness for my tiny family, my friends, joyful movement, good books, good food, sleep, practice, and therapy. Also, clean water and biscuits & jam.

3. I finally finished my Curvy Yoga teacher certification. I got sidetracked finishing my 500 hour certification, quitting my job of 19 years, and coping with burnout, but I finished. Now I’ve moved on to getting some of the foundations for my new “business” set up, (I don’t know why, but to say I have a “business” sounds too weird, so I have to put it in quotes).

4. We got new furniture! You might not understand what a big deal this is. We’ve never had furniture that was new and matched or was any kind of intentional design. We still live like we are college roommates renting an apartment rather than a 26 year married pair of 52 year old home owners. We bought new rugs (so Sam won’t slip on the hardwoods and if he lies on the floor, he’ll be on something softer), a mini sectional, and new bookshelves this week. We are also going to get a console table to put our TV on. I hadn’t realized until we got it all set up how much I needed a fresh start, how much I’d appreciate the comfort and beauty. Of course, we ultimately ended up keeping one of our old sofas and a “vintage” mustard yellow velour recliner we inherited from Eric’s parents (they bought it new probably over 50 years ago) that Ringo loves, but it all works in the way we need it to work. Now if we can just keep Ringo from doing too much Parkour on and off the new couch. And also, WHY so MANY pillows?! Who uses all those?

5. My tiny family. The keep me sane and safe, and they make me laugh.

Seriously though: why must he insist on trying so hard to wreck himself?

He likes coffee

“Helping” me make biscuits, or rather waiting for me to drop some butter

Bonus joy: a warm shower, clean pjs, pjs that are decent enough I can wear them out of the house as pants, tea with Chloe’, hanging out with Mikalina, writing in the morning with a hot cup of cocoa coffee (half cocoa with marshmallows, half coffee), sitting in the sauna with Eric, clean sheets, a book so good you try really hard to stay awake so you can keep reading, good TV, clementines, going to the movies and getting popcorn, clarity about what I need, being able to afford new furniture, our “old” furniture becoming someone else’s “new” furniture, other people’s dogs, yoga taught by good teachers using props and good cuing, new to me music, good podcasts, baking, getting all the laundry done and put away, my new pen, being retired.