Tag Archives: Video

Gratitude Friday

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frozen feather

This post started as 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. Roasted Vegetables. I could eat roasted brussel sprouts every day of of the week. I like them even more than french fries.

2. Responses to a Cultivating Courage dare. The goal was to ask 5-10 people our strengths, gifts, superpower and to be able to hear, accept, allow their response, to take the compliment instead of brushing it off or shutting down. As in the last time I did this, I loved the responses I got, was so grateful for the people who took the time to answer, to make the offering. It’s such a powerful exercise to hear how other people see me (and they only tell you the good stuff).

3. Walking with the dogs. It’s been nice to get back to our routine. Over Winter Break, with both Eric and I off work, all four of us would go, and I love that, but there’s also something great about just me and the dogs. It is a beautiful world out there, and I love having a reason to go see it, to walk around in it and look, to be.

4. My health. A very nasty crud or two, along with a few varieties of the plague are out there this season. I am trying really, really hard not to judge, not to get frustrated or irritated when people who have the option of paid sick leave don’t stay home and get well, when they risk infecting other people with the same thing that’s making them feel so crappy, how that makes what is going around continue to go round and round. Instead, I shift my focus to being grateful for my continued good health, and to sending anyone who is sick healing vibes and compassion, and a wish that they know it’s okay to take care of themselves, that for most of them no one will die if they didn’t go to work for a few days–and I’m also washing my hands like a mad woman.

5. Videos of my dogs. I love being able to see Sam as a puppy, to watch Obi and Dexter play (even though it makes me sad too).

Here’s one of Dexter, rolling in the grass, one of his favorite things, growling and grunting like a pig.

Bonus Joy: Dexter is still here, still doing well. Just a bit ago, when I went out to clean up the backyard, he brought a ball for me to throw, and we played fetch for a bit. He and I have spent hundreds of hours this exact same way over the last 9.5 years.

The beam of sunlight in this picture from one of our walks this week makes him look like a unicorn.

Unicorn Dex

P.S. I remember back when I was so excited anyone read my blog, that I took a picture of my stats page when I hit 2000 views. At some point today or tomorrow, it will reach 50,000. I can barely wrap my mind around that number. All I know is that I have the kindest and gentlest readers, and I bow deeply and with such gratitude to each and every one of you who took the time to show up. Thank you.

Something Good

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1. From Justine Musk, The Question You Need to Ask Yourself.

2. This quote from Geneen Roth:

Sometimes we use food and our weight as a way to be left alone. Since many of us believe that, regardless of what we get paid to do, our real job is to on call for people who need us, we leave ourselves with a way to get what we need and want: food. But when you say yes when you mean no, you abandon yourself. And when you say no when you mean no, you signal to yourself that it is safe here, inside your body. Safe here, where you live and are and breathe. You don’t have to run away. You don’t have to lie.

Saying no is a way of being tender with yourself and honest with the people around you. And when you say no with your voice, you will no longer need to say it with your body weight. And when you say no to what you don’t want, you have space to say yes to what you do.

And this one:

Right now, in this very second, ask yourself if what you are doing, what you are thinking and how you are acting brings you closer to yourself or farther away. Does it open your heart or does it close your heart? You have a choice. Break the trance. Come back to kindness.

And this one too:

Sometimes happiness is as difficult to accept as sadness or loneliness. Sometimes, we eat because we don’t know what to do with happiness or joy. We think we’re not allowed. We think we will get “too big for our britches.” We become superstitious. If we talk about it, people won’t like it. If we tell someone, they might be threatened and go away. We hold onto our sadness because we think that that is what connects us with other people–that if we feel terrible about ourselves, we will get help, but if we feel as if we are occupying our own lives, if we feel powerful, we will lose. In this way, we keep ourselves psychologically small. We keep ourselves wounded and afraid of our own magnificence. But it’s when you are aware of, and own, the hugeness of your heart, your being, your love that you are most connected to other people–which then allows them to connect to their own power, their own love. It begins with you.

3. A tiny riverside house in Japan. On the inside, it looks so much bigger, more spacious than you’d expect.

4. Understanding How to Frame Your Creative Expertise. And P.S. I’m a survivor.

5. How to Write Like a Mother#^@%*& by Elissa Bassist & Cheryl Strayed.

6. Not Today a beautiful poem by the beautiful poet Julia Fehrenbacher at Painted Path.

7. The Power of Showing Up from Clare Herbert.

8. “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” ~Mary Oliver

9. 5 Lessons I Learned While Running from Marianne Elliott. The final line of this isn’t about running at all, but it’s my favorite. Marianne also has a really great Resources for Writers page on her site.

10. Ben’s Friday Dance Party. I love this guy. He makes me smile. But I also watch this video and wonder if you were around him all the time, would it get annoying? Or would your face and stomach hurt from smiling so much and laughing so hard?

11. 30 Best Jokes from 30 Rock. I watched the final episode this weekend, am so sad that it’s over.

12. I commit to 28 days of meditation practice. May my practice benefit all beings.

13. 14 Days of Self Love hosted by Vivienne McMaster.

14. My Creative Life: Rachel W Cole on Susannah Conway’s blog. Two of my favorite women together.

15. 8 Ways Happy People are Different from Everyone Else by Shelley Prevost.

16. Why We Write: Mary Karr on the Magnetism and Madness of the Written Word on Brain Pickings. Equally depressing, refreshingly honest, and oddly comforting is this, “I still don’t support myself as a writer. I support myself as a college professor. I couldn’t pay my mortgage on the revenue from my books. The myth is that you make a lot of money when you publish a book. Unless you write a blockbuster, that’s pretty much untrue. Starting when I was five, I always identified as a writer. It had nothing to do with income.” I wish it weren’t true, and yet if it is, wouldn’t it just be better to surrender?

17. Brene’ Brown: The Courage to Be Vulnerable, Sounds True Podcast. Listen or download for free.

18. 13 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers from Jeff Goins, shared by Susannah on her Something for the Weekend list.

19. Glazed Beet and Carrot Salad. I want to eat this, (also from Susannah’s list).

20. My Gift to You from Erica Herbert, in which Erica reads the sweetest book, (also from Susannah’s list).

21. Seth Godin on The Art of Noticing, and Then Creating, an On Being podcast, (from Happy Links on Rowdy Kittens). Also about Seth Godin, Here’s How Seth Godin Writes on Copy Blogger. My favorite part is when he is asked: “Do you write every day?” and his answer is “Do you talk every day?”

22. Yo La Tengo – “I’ll Be Around” video, a simple but magically complex video.

23. Danny and Annie, a sweet, sad love story, with an ending like so many others.

24. 10 Things Parents Should Never, Ever Do on BlogHer. I’m never sure if these are funny to me because I don’t have kids, or if they’d be that much funnier if I did.

25. Get Out of Your Head and Into the Moment on Scoutie Girl.

26. How to Say No to Everything Ever by Alexandra Franzen.

27. Oh What To Do About Sugar? by Jennifer Louden. Oh what to do indeed.