Happiness and gratitudes

• my new manager at work

• overly long breaks (wading in fountains)

• garlic

• my days off

• Fear & Resilience

• getting back a roll of slide film I shot in Massachusetts

• the "Girl-Caught" campaign from the girls' magazine New Moon. I am so going to get my niece a subscription.

• a conversation with my librarian in which we discover that we are both principled Non-Dieters

• quiet mornings puttering and gearing up for the day. cooking a good Tupperware lunch for work, and enjoying doing it, has been my self-care practice lately.

• good yoga routines from YouTube

• Sunday evening liturgy

• Jenni Schaefer's books (eating disorder recovery)

• minimalist to-do lists (three or fewer things for the day...be real about priorities; be focused)

Knotty shoulders

In the Loop. Sometimes you just have to put your bags down and find a nice patch of pavement to do some shoulderstands on.

Not long now

Wicker Park again. I made a friend this year who lives there, a little bit odd of a story beginning with a set-up by our mutual matchmaker friend, and I don't know if we now will stay friends, though it would be nice. It's hard to tell with people in general, whether to stay in touch or not. Even best friends can be forgotten, even acquaintances can be kept in touch with, if the circumstances and intentions are right.

(Flatness is a strange thing): In Chicago, you can look down a street until it meets its vanishing point.

70 degrees, September wind, a sweet dry smell on the air

So beautiful that for a day I lived under a tree, its whole shade for myself and my backpacked belongings. I smiled my way into my old dorm to do laundry on their non-coin-op machines, and while I was waiting for my clothes to dry I took a picture of the rest of my objects. It is a really beautiful thing to be carrying everything you need, plus some, on your person.

A letter from Jeanima: 7/16/11

Click through the images to get to the Flickr page where you can choose to view them larger, or scroll down for the text.





Text:

Jeanima is delighted to be writing you this letter. She greets you in Jesus' name, the almighty. She and family are doing well, thanks to God. Her school activities are doing good. She took the last control exam, she does not do good. She will repeat the same grade. She asks: Do you grow a garden? She reports it is hot where she lives now. She asks you to pray that God is with her in all she does. She is praying that God protects you and family.

She wishes you a happy summer vacation 2011.

Thanks go to Debbie and  Liv B for covering Jeanima's sponsorship fees for the month of September. Debbie and Liv, you are wonderful and you are making a difference.