1. Sun Aug 6, good meeting, conversations, progress at work, visit with nephew at hot springs, relaxing soak, conversations with family, insights, good meals.
2. Mon Aug 7, early to work, cheerful help from co-workers, progress at work, good meals, helpful rain.
3. Tue Aug 8, cheerful help from co-workers, progress at work, good meals, helpful man on bus and another at bus station.
4. Wed Aug 9, cheerful help from co-workers, progress at work, good meals, fresh plums from the trees, good walks, conversation with coworkers and bus driver, prayers for peace.
5. Thu Aug 10,  cheerful help from co-workers, progress at work, good meals, car out of shop.
6. Fri Aug 11,early to work, cheerful help from co-workers, progress at work, good meals, fresh plums from tree, pleasant moment in park, conversations with co-workers and friend.
7. Sat Aug 12, well rested, conversations with co-workers, productive shopping trip, helped friend, refreshing swim, good meals, prayers for peace.

Sometimes I just feel like hiding from the world and all its scary events!!

Writing a gratitude list is helpful.

Spontaneous writing in my journal will mellow me out.

Studying the artist, Marc Chagall, taking notes out of a huge coffee table book about him.

“In life, just as on the artist’s palette, there is buy one single color that gives meaning to life and art — the color of love.” — Marc Chagall

Having fresh corn on the cob for dinner will make me so very happy!

Watching my precious birds at the feeder outside my kitchen window.

Sitting by my fairy/gnome rock garden lifts my spirits. Our darling one year old neighbor, Penny, came over to visit and smiled, poked, and pointed at fairies, mirror ball, gnomes, pink begonias, and more. That makes my amazing garden even more fun and wonderful — to get the attention of a darling little girl.

The table cloth on our kitchen table is sprinkled with butterflies and flowers galore! It was hand colored by our beloved book group!!

Varied sizes of white vases that spell out L O V E. Have bright pink daisies to put in them! Hooray!

Ran into my dear friend Laura and her mother at the farm market. Great people watching and lots of fruits and vegetables.

Everywhere I look, I find someone or something that makes me grateful. I need to remember how blessed I am and counter scary world news with hope and compassion. Yikes!

Thankful for another day God has given me. 

Slept in a little more than I planned this morning but woke up when my son came home early this morning and grateful he is safe. 

My dog, Jax, eating all his food right away this morning.

Skeeter being his cute self just like Jax. 

The beautiful morning outside.

Enjoying my protein shake.

Attending and chairing my home group A.A. meeting last night.  I had not been there for a few weeks and was happy to be back.

Sobriety and not smoking cigarettes.

People at my meetings that I have known for over three decades.  Awesome.  It works if you work it.

Having  the weekend off.

God.

My Bible and Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

A new phone (my son’s 9 month old one) but new to me.  He upgraded and I am fine with that as mine is so much nicer than the old one. 

That I did not let the salesman pressure me into making decisions I was not ready to make. 

Lunch with my son yesterday. 

The Perseid meteor showers. Always part of anniversary time. Maybe tonight we will go look for streaks of light.Looking up!

Rainbows.Sunshine and rain, a lesson there.

Rainbows on a birthday cake.

The to-do about the coming solar eclipse. Tell your children not to look up at it without eye protection.

Look it up.

Jamie and Becca excited when they find out total viewing is just 5 hours away.

Need to tell sister she is in total area but  don’t look up.

The moon and the stars.

Look up. Hope things are looking up for you!

1. God
2. Visiting my mother and father and bringing them basil and tomatoes and zucchini from our garden. They are always so appreciative. I appreciate them. My father says I have a green thumb like his father but I always appreciated the tomatoes he grew and the lettuce and basil he brought us when he tended a garden.
3. My father’s memory is no longer so good. I know it frustrates him, not being able to recall the names of people, places, and things, sometimes. You’ll experience it one day too, he told me. It’s humbling to hear this.
4. My mother is quite cheerful and I know it’s hard for her to manage my dad as well as things for herself. His stubbornness, which I think served him well at different times in life, makes it hard. Only occasionally have I tried to imagine myself in his shoes or in her shoes.
5. I try to cherish each visit and give them my full attention and as much time as I can. My mother offers me lemonade and then ice cream. She shouldn’t wait on me. Maybe it pleases her. It’s her house. She’s working tomorrow at the library, which she does one Saturday a month. It seems to please her also but often tires her. Otherwise, she manages their doctors’ appointments, calls in people to fix things, and keeps the house running. They don’t ask much from me even though I would implore them to. My mother asks me to look at the computer and I try what I can to fix it, and she’s pretty savvy about that too, except I think she has trouble seeing the little icons and “x”s and such.
6. I don’t know how many more visits I will have with them. Each one matters, but I cannot ask for perfection from any of us. They are in their eighties and healthy and strong. Tomorrow is not guaranteed to me either.
7. As I approached the house along the sharp incline from the drive way, spread before me was the vast green lawn (which I used to tear up playing baseball with my friends,) the surrounding pine trees, the flowers my father planted which I had sent to him monthly, and those parts of the yard with the sunlight on them. I could enjoy this, I thought, sitting out here, even once.

Back to work… grateful for the comfort of routine. Hot coffee. Listening to the outside world on my little radio.

I had a chance to get the day off due to low surgery schedule today.

Spending time with my son today and purchasing a new phone as my phone still is not 100% recovered the being soaked in a rain storm a couple weeks ago.

The beautiful summer day after lots of rain off and on recently.

I get to go and chair my A.A. meeting tonight…..at least I think I signed up for tonight. ;) 

God being in my life today and everyday.

Waking up sober and nicotine free another day.  Life is good!

Being able to wake up slowly this morning and not have to run off to work. 

My son and family.

My dog and cat and their antics.  They are hilarious some days. 

Being able to get up this morning and enjoy a nice shower.  Yes, I know I wrote about that this week already but I will never take that for granted again after the month of demolition and construction. 

My Bible.  I decided to start reading it cover to cover as I have never done that before.  It will take awhile.  I have read many passages as our church always refers to and reads from it.  We are on Revelations right now.  Awesome. 

Good people in my life who out weigh the bad.  

Changing plans when it makes one person happy.Mini golf instead of swimming.

Traveling a road you have not been on for years.

Pizza and ice cream cake. Easy celebration for grand daughter’s birthday.

Playing a game that gets more ridiculous with each play. But we laugh!

The peace of family. A toast to us who welcomed them all! (Was there any other choice?)

Being together. Happy talk. Catching up.

I pray the new days will bring many more days like this.

The deer in  the dark watching our car car. Hello deer!

Home. Family. Peace. Bed.

All 5 grandkids here today, yikes!! Grateful for the noise, confusion and live swirling around

1. God
2. Night sky full of clouds
3. Sunflowers in three varieties
4. Tomatoes beginning to ripen
5. Gift of breath
6. A sense of where I am
7. It changes, it changes
8. Asking what would I change
9. Receptive to another person’s battle
10. Buildings that rise and fly
11. “bread that ate my flesh”
“The communion with God is simple, so we will not be dazzled; so we can eat and drink His love and still go about our lives; so our souls will burn slowly rather than blaze.” – Andre Dubus, “Communion,” in Meditations from a Movable Chair