Things that are making me happy

• Lunch with a kindly work friend at the end of a stressful week

• Blogs seeming to be making a comeback (?)

• Cherry tomatoes so disturbingly delicious that I eat them raw in a day, one by one, not a thought for salad and certainly not for cooking

• Rainbow flags all up and down Market Street in SF for the month of June

• The generous leafy green summer shade of trees in my neighborhood

• Key lime almond milk yogurt

• Granola with yogurt, period (something I somehow forgot?)

• My talking cat, i.e. my cat using her communication buttons. Especially when she is just saying her name as if to announce herself, or one of our names repeatedly because we're not paying enough attention...it kills me in the best way.

• More snuggles than usual lately from said cat

• Getting no-longer-wanted things out of the apartment

• Finally getting a frame so I can enjoy a Yelena Bryksenkova print I got for Christmas

• Apartment tips from people who live in slightly smaller spaces than we do

• Daylight for my early commute days

• Trying a new-to-me aerial apparatus last week: dance trapeze. If you're curious what that is, here's a piece on this apparatus that mesmerizes me over and over (and which is no way representative of my own skill level!): "Embody," by Kate Hutchinson.

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

 • Watching hachiya persimmons ripen on my neighbors' trees, the fruit nearly the same color as the changing leaves

• Time off work

• Rainstorms, for my fire- and drought-plagued home

• Critically, a handy neighbor able to stop my roof leaking

• And for a very rainy-day lunch: hot chocolate and grilled cheese

• Fairy tales - I've been reading slowly through the first edition of the Grimm collection

• Isn't It Romantic, the movie - lots of laughs on a recent weekday night

• The colors of the sunset reflecting in the puddles on the rooftop across the way

• New comfy work-from-home pants

• Finding nice, brand-new hiking boots in my size at a secondhand store, for under $40

• Al-Anon meetings, the kindness there and the feeling of hope and calm I receive

• Giving up on a book partway through sometimes 

• Giving up on books I own but haven't read, sometimes

• Booster shots for my girlfriend and my mom

• Juniper (our cat daughter)

• A daydream of learning to weave

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

• The wonderful sweetness of roasted leeks

• Discovering sliced Tokyo turnips as a vehicle for hummus 

• The combination of wintry light, clear skies, and fresh winds we get at this time of year in the Bay Area

• Going outside around dusk (paler colors, colder air) to get some last fresh air for the night and reminisce about other early-winter days in years past and places distant. 

• Putting my girlfriend’s extra duvet on the bed and feeling nicely buried at bedtime 

• Sleep socks 

• Vacation from work. A staycation, of course, the longest chunk of time I’ve had off work since August 2019, and specifically, a reading staycation. I spent the week leading up to it ordering books and arranging library holds so as to be entirely ensconced in books, and sleep, for the duration of the week. 

• Relatedly, going back to the LIBRARY (even if only for curbside pickup) 

• Continuing to bake bread every week or so 

• Tea forgotten, but remembered when it is exactly the right temperature

• Finding, and racing through, a single novel containing three of my favorite book ingredients: San Francisco, ballet, and Antarctica (Up to This Pointe, by Jennifer Longo)

• Reading a Rapunzel retelling and realizing what a fitting fairy tale it is for the shelter-in-place era (Bitter Greens, by Kate Forsyth)

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

• Long solitary walks on mild evenings

• The Law of Return, by Alice Bloch

• The neighborhood cats - pictured above is Ted, a deeply kind, wise soul whose trust I have been rewarded with thanks to many visits. (Licorice is one of his friends.)

• One day a week in the office

• Having a respectful employer who keeps a safe workplace

• Taking on new, bigger responsibilities at work (which made me stressed, worried, and irritable for the couple weeks leading up, and now is making me feel more engaged and capable)

• Reading the dreams I wrote down in March, when I challenged myself to record all my dreams for the month

• The bravery of women who say what they think and think for themselves

• A very small translation task to re-awaken my German

• The very concise daily newsletter of world events that I  have been receiving for a few years by email, and how much one can learn from doing a little bit of reading consistently

• Goddess melons

• Holly trees

• Continued CSA adventures - learning, for example, a couple things I like that I can do with cabbage (something I have never before purchased in my life)

• The scent of walking into the shade of six enormous magnolia trees

• The scent of star jasmine

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

• Hearing the neighborhood peacock's evening cries

• Having a neighborhood peacock

• And most of all, finally FINDING the neighborhood peacock

• Tiger Balm and CBD salve for a sore muscle

• Flowers blooming and coming up everywhere

• Doing Hebrew worksheets first thing after cereal on a Saturday morning, while others are still asleep and the apartment is quiet. I love language worksheets.

• Reorganizing my closet for greater accessibility/efficiency (I am boring)

• Orphan Black

• Long late evenings now

• Reading from a big photo-heavy book about the oceans to wake up in the morning

• Being able to run a little faster now

• Experiencing prolonged lucidity while dreaming for the first time

• Starting to re-make some workday routines for my working-from-home purposes

•  Hearing cat people using their cat voices in other languages

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• Several days of spring-like, hopeful weather to remind me that life is even better sometimes than I remembered it could be

• The sound of palm trees in the wind, especially at night

• Seeing flowering broccolini for the first time, and learning that it is a sign of deliciousness

• Wild beautiful front yards with humble ordinary houses inside them

• Sprinting to make a crosswalk light at the end of a jog

• Plants that remind me of Australia

• Eating tangerines in Hebrew class

• Magnolia blossoms and plum blossoms

• A subway busker with a bright green clarinet

• Flowering rosemary

• A new issue of Womankind to read on my breaks at work

• So many stripey shirts

• My carpool to work, and working on my knitting to stay sane when we are stuck in traffic

• An excellent clothing swap among a few friends

• Not starting work earlier than I'm scheduled to - occupying myself with a book, my journal, etc. if I arrive early

• Getting better at leaving work shortly after when my day is scheduled to end. Being realistic about what can wait, and doing what can't wait earlier in the day.

• Waxed fabric wraps for food

• Potato carrot onion soup

• Weekend snuggles

• Drifting away from Goodreads a bit, and recording my reading more in my own journal

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• Animal rights reading (although I seem now to have misplaced the book in question, 60% of my way through it...)

• Bibliopedestrianism - both the practice and the word

• Gentle yoga videos

• Anniversary plans

• Singing with friends

• Blog comments

• Pared-down Twitter (I shaved away most of my follows and followers)

• No Instagram anymore

• Being the girlfriend of a grad student who is currently done with finals!

• Flannel sheets

• Short work weeks

• Doing my best at work, and my best getting better

• Bouquets of what's actually growing in December in Northern California (currently: marigolds, eucalyptus, fir, and some other things I can't name)

• A break from Hebrew classes, and plans to fill it in with Hebrew-language movies

• Weekend breakfast the way my girlfriend's grandparents have it: tomato-cucumber-green onion salad, and cheese on bread

• Call the Midwife

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• Replacing crackers in my diet with fresh bread

• Work calming down in the wake of Thanksgiving

• Reading Frankenstein with my college best friend

• Brewing full teapots of tea instead of just one mug's worth

• Drinking tea in the shower

• Homemade mashed potatoes

• The nearly magical benefits of some stretching time during the workday

• Rain clouds

• Experimenting with buying as many of my gifts locally as possible

• Also experimenting with a non-perfectionist attitude towards choosing gifts, in the interest of not having quite so many left to buy at the last minute

• My oldest niece asking for a diary for Christmas. As someone with a cherished journaling habit of nearly twenty years, I could not be more touched.

• That hygge book

• An unexpected field trip with a coworker to stop by a customer in the middle of the day today - a short drive by the water with a Beach House soundtrack. Delighful!
 
• Early bedtimes to make up for late ones

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• Cut freesias on the dining room table - so many scent memories
• Ocean Beach during Indian summer
• And more chances than usual to walk by the water recently
• Revisiting the natural foods co-op that I first started going to with my mom when I was 13 and a brand-new vegetarian :')
• Brass's dresses
• The way a fresh pen glides across paper
• Writing in my journal sometimes instead of tweeting, and journaling more in general
• Navratan korma
• The smell of dried spearmint
• Watching the original Step Up movie with my sisters, and noticing (and lauging at) how RIDICULOUS everything about it is
• That I got my nerve up to try something new, hard, and fun recently

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• The brand-new ballet my mom and I saw last week - small excerpt above! Invigorating and just delightful
• How the sand felt under me when I sat cross-legged on the beach in the evening of a hot day
• Cozy socks and a cozy beanie
• Finally getting a bike helmet, as a birthday present - and a nice one, at that, for the first time
• Letting myself read and enjoy books which do not require a lot of effort and concentration
• Hours of snacks and tea and feminism with friends
• Going to bed early enough to sit up against my pillows and read before I reach the point of drooping eyelids
• Beginning to build my own "I'm a Grown-Up with My Own Home" Harry Potter set
• Wonderful springtime clouds
• That one of my kindred spirit friends from college will be moving to the Bay Area soon, and that I got to hang out with her while she was visiting to check out apartments
• Sitting down and drinking a full glass of water mindfully
• An invitation/a thought of visiting an old friend in LA
• Having letters to reply to (the positive flip-side of feeling behind on replying to letters?)
• Wandering around a yuppie retail part of Oakland with my dad, admiring the wares in all the yuppie stores (graceful stoneware, adult coloring books, exceedingly precious locally made baby clothes, etc.)

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• trees full of blossoms

• spring air (I know it's only February, but this is the Bay Area)

• reading Letters to a Young Poet, and how comforting it is when I am lonely

• breathing and thinking

• the yummiest mocha and blueberry cornbread  at brunch this morning

• having an old favorite toy camera back in my possession

• yoga twice this week (I usually go once a month max)

• connecting better with a new coworker I didn't think I'd like

• biking under the full moon with my dear one

• the gift of a rainbow votive candle

• my roommate's rants and monologues and listening ear

• a feline houseguest

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

fresh hummus

afternoon drinks with Odessa and Annelise while the latter was visiting from Australia. such good laughter and conversation.

an electric kettle in my bedroom

people who are lovely and understanding when you need to reschedule at the last minute

grandma hand-me-downs

a much-needed haircut

stolen catering leftovers

homemade macarons

paychecks

venturing into new parts of the Bay Area

reconnecting with my old youth leader and meeting her fabulous cat

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

income

the colors of hydrangeas

cooking sometimes for my love

she calling me her best friend

coffee with soy creamer

a milk crate for the back of my bike

nights when I sleep well/enough

Star Trek: Voyager

views of the ocean and the Bay and my city

Gratitudes/things that are making me happy

• gifts of flowers

• being able to text for free now with my Sydney sister (Belle's got a new phone finally and international iMessaging is free, wheee)

• when the favorite wine of a terrible(ish) person turns out to be a terrible wine

• carrot-beet juice

• the view from Fort Funston

• the little collie that sometimes hangs out at the office I clean, and the way he nudges the back of my leg with his nose for attention

• meditating

• going out with just the right people on just the right occasion

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• new accomplices

• necessary farewells

• laughing a whole lot to myself

• the Panhandle during the golden hour

• my mama telling me that I have an I have a secret smile

• "what are you thinking about?"

• my new planner ("diary" is what it is called in Australian and that's where I got it, so that's what it says on the cover) — it is perfect in every way

• star projectors

• perfect toasts

• nighttime magic

• Highway 1

• acting my age

• faith

• beginning again to want

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• the gift of a lovely new teapot

• getting to see my sister and her family for Christmas

• long handwriting sessions

• the clarity that a single word can bring when it's the descriptor you need

• introducing my two-year-old niece to Xena: Warrior Princess early one morning when it was just the two of us

• Malbec and good memories

• mess

• being able to pay this month's credit card bill

• being awake today to see the full moon sink into the dawn clouds 

• atmospheric music videos

• growing older

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry — I read through this online collection recently

• smiling kisses / kissing smiles

• harmless people

• good friends

• leisurely art museum afternoons

• a new pen pal

• taking time in the morning to feel put-together

• the numerous excellent dresses I op-shopped in the last two weeks of being in Australia, and how I now get to wear them with the extra jauntiness of lace-up boots and woolly winter layers

• not half-assing on my needs

• a somewhat epic friend rescue from LAX, staged by Sui in my hour of desperate need

• the simplicity and clarity of dancing sober and simply happy / with Erin in a dark concert venue during clean-up

• disco balls, by the way — not at ALL overrated

• short flights

• airports with free wi-fi

• and a brief visit with my Arizonan little sister for the first time in three and a half years

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• blossoming jacaranda trees

• nice bus drivers

• rainy mornings

• feeling the happy kind of tired after a run

• the anxiety workbook I am working through (here)

• beautiful autumn photos from northern-hemisphere bloggers

• phone calls from my Sydney sister

• two of my good friends finding good jobs

• the smell of my new face wash

• listening closely to what I need

• sitting by the sea

• shooting with a borrowed AE-1

• driving south by starlight and headlights, with Shannon and her kids and her case of energy drinks

• seeing a wallaby in the wild

• a sense of peace and release

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• my first affogato

• finding the lid to my tea flask

• days when I don't have hay fever

• Zoe's blog, love and some words

• Sophocles and Madeleine L'Engle

• a big Australian history book to open when I don't know what to do with myself

• my first trip to a library in a month

• writing letters

• running

• excellent furniture rearrangement choices

• choosing to do nothing sometimes, rather than doing things mindlessly

• housemate Shannon when she's snarking her way through a fashion magazine

• garlic mayonnaise to put on roast potatoes

• thinking about how wonderful the people I am friends with are

Gratitudes + things that are making me happy

• houses with electric kettles

• the word estuary

• big trampolines

• quiet and spaciousness and warmth

• the sound of the wind in the gum trees

• living near the ocean

• a bicycle to borrow

• Skype

• Australian clouds

• unfamiliar stars

• that I learned during college how to live in smaller towns/suburbs

• "You seem older."

• the company of an enjoyable book lent to me by a good friend

• my friends and my mom, who give me support and listening ears when I need them

• sound sleep under a particularly cozy duvet

• oat milk

• asparagus

• and fond Sydney memories to return to.