March 30: I am grateful for Mother Nature’s sense of humor and creativity. Case in point is this big splat of bird poop. I found it on the nature walk I took earlier this week, the walk with the Labyrinth on it. I see an awkward looking bird with a big forehead and beady[…]
March 29: This is a Labyrinth. Unlike a maze which may have multiple entrances and exits, dead ends, no center, and branches requiring decision making; a labyrinth has one center, one entrance which is also the exit, and one non-branching path. A maze is confusing, a labyrinth is purposeful. Last month my[…]
March 28: I’m grateful today for the neighbor or postal employee who, instead of returning this card to sender, recognized the street number was wrong and corrected it. This person facilitated the delivery of “mailbox magic”, a phrase coined by a group of my friends for the unexpected surprise of fun cheery mail. I[…]
March 26: I am grateful for the magazine, Art Journaling, by Stampington & Company. My fingers are drawn to the high quality paper and my mind is stimulated by the art journaling pages and the story and techniques of each of the featured artists. I had some time to myself this afternoon and stopped to[…]
March 24: These vibrantly colored Gazanias are in full bloom right now. They line the walkway to my door inviting all who approach to smile. I can’t sneak by. It doesn’t matter how pre-occupied I am, the flowers just beg to be noticed. Gazanias symbolize richness. I didn’t know this when I bought them;[…]
March 22: I’m grateful to have found a way to make my four wooden adirondack chairs last another year or two. I love these bright orange chairs because they’re comfortable, their arms are perfect for resting a glass of wine or water on, and the color is super cheery. But[…]
March 20th: Talk about the squirrel syndrome. I came home from an appointment desperately needing to write about March’s book club book, the one I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. It’s a book of connected essays and I finished the final three this morning. If I had[…]
March 19th: Sometimes what we’re grateful for is faraway, hidden in the muck of all our usual thoughts, revealed to us as a suggestion from someone else’s perspective. As I write this sentence I’m reminded of one of my original goals, to offer different perspectives of gratitude, but it didn’t[…]
March 18th: We share an orange tree with my neighbor. Officially it’s their tree; we simply benefit from its location along the fence that separates our two properties. A few months ago I was grateful for the oranges, today I am grateful for the sweet calming scent of orange blossoms and[…]
March 16: Four years ago today my husband and I were re-acclimating ourselves after being 7 days on a 16 passenger Motor Catamaran in the Galapagos Islands. Our brief return to Quito was the perfect opportunity to relocate our land legs, take a proper shower, attire ourselves with clothes that[…]
March 14th: I’m not a skier which makes snowbound vacations not so high on my list. But I never pass up an opportunity to go on a trip with a group of friends and this group of friends is a lot of fun to travel with. I did give skiing the[…]
March 13th: On this day in 2005 I was in Paris, on this day in 2009 I was in Banff, and on this day in 2013 I was in the Galapagos. For very different reasons these were three very significant trips. Two of them included my husband and another couple.[…]
March 11th: I feel great today. I’m clear-headed, relaxed and surprisingly pain free; all the result of my very first float therapy session, which was yesterday. What is float therapy? It’s a way of achieving deep relaxation by spending an hour or more lying quietly in darkness, suspended in a[…]
March 10th: My journaling prompt this week is to write about a favorite quote. I have an artsy composition book, one of those books you write essays in for exams only this one is covered in flowers and inspiring words to disguise its intended purpose. These books are inexpensive and fun and perfect[…]
March 8th: I am grateful for the sunny disposition of these sunflowers and this heart rock, a token of inspiration and friendship given to me by a massage therapist who generously shares her creative spirit and healing energy.
March 6th: I suffer from “Squirrel Syndrome”, kind of like Dug the talking dog in the movie Up. It’s not always a metaphor though. Today there actually was a squirrel in my yard, lounging on the fence in the shade of a tree. It’s a distraction that makes me smile.[…]
March 5th: I participated in an activism training program given by Sara El-Amine today. She is the former National Grassroots Organizing Director at Organizing for Action, President Obama’s grassroots 20-million-person strong movement, and is known as “The Organizer of Organizers”. The program’s goal is to empower individuals to be political[…]
March 4th: In the spaces between rainstorms there is spring, just enough spring to tease. I spent the morning in the garden weeding, pruning, planting seeds for my butterfly garden, and hanging up hummingbird feeders. A Mockingbird inches along a telephone line, hop hop pause, hop hop pause, silently moving into position to dive[…]