Pandora. I can always find some new instrumental music to listen to while I work (if I listen to songs with words, I get too distracted!) What a nice service.
Ellis’ new album, The Guest House. It is her best album yet. What an amazing album. It is beautiful, fun, inviting and on all levels gorgeous! It goes on sale in Feb, but you can still pre-order it. I highly advise it. 😀
Kitty cuddles at the end of a long day. Thank you, my feline friends.
Sleep! I’m not really sure why I need SO much of it these past few days, but I was very glad to sleep in this morning and catch up a little bit.
Decluttering! Mckenzie and I made significant progress on the downsize/declutter project in the basement today – in just an hour. Three more bags of stuff to donate, one bag of things moved back into their rightful places, another couple bags out to the trash/recycling. Pretty exciting. 😀
Phones! I started the day with a quick little conversation with Terri and closed out the day catching up with David. So great to be able to keep in touch, at least a little, and hear my dear friends’ voices.
Hahaha! My MMMM: morning marker meditation mistake… You can tell I did this before coffee. I accidentally made another 4.136 sign. Haha!
Just refilled the ink and changed out a couple nibs on my pens. I just love love love these pens!! With refillable ink and replaceable nibs, I’m set for forever. Which is a good thing since I’ve decided to start out each day with a coloring meditation. 🙂 [You can learn more about and/or buy these pens here: Diana’s favorite pens. If you like to color, I highly recommend them!]
Marker meditation! I’ve never been good at traditional meditating, but if I get to just color, I can totally rock it! 😉
Gluten free chocolate cake. I think that kind of goes without saying, though…. 😀
Hanging out with the kids and playing cards last night. I like these bonus visits!!
Blue skies and sunshine for my drive out to Ivan’s new place today. I even had to wear sunglasses! 😀
So great to see Ivan, Debb, and Tim and meet some of Ivan’s friends while helping unpack at the new house. Congrats on the new place, cuz!
YOU. Yes, you! If you are reading this, you are one of the people that make my life sparkle and shine. As I continue to adjust to changes and challenges presented in the past couple years, the one thing I am grateful for every day is the people in my life. You are one of those bright lights — whether we interact in person or online, whether you’ve been a shoulder to cry on, a pal to goof around with, or someone who every once in awhile likes my posts on Facebook or follows my blog, you have made my days easier, brighter, and more fun. I am so grateful for the brilliance, humor, gentleness, love, and patience you have shown me. Thank you for being exactly who you are — and for being part of my life. ♥
ME. Past Diana, especially, for having the experiences and thoughts that have led me to where I am today. I also appreciate her for recording the wonderful things that happened in 2015 both in spreadsheets and on bright bits of paper as part of my New Year Happy Jar. So fun to go through the past year’s highlights as I begin 2016!
THEM. The folks in the world who I don’t know, but who make this world brighter, better, and more beautiful in their own ways. All those people who work on things I don’t want to – or don’t know how to – but without which life would be a little less easy, a little less fun. All those people painting the world in big, broad stokes of color and love and patience and gentleness. There are so many folks like that whose presence and whose work makes this world brighter. I appreciate them, too!
What a satisfying and fun final day of 2015!
Started off with a productive morning of work, crossing a few t’s and dotting a couple i’s.
Then, a nice afternoon with Katie, shopping and hanging out. I found a cute pair of boots. In my size! On clearance! Now I can stop wearing my poor old purple converse sneakers out in the snow. 😉
Finished off the day with a delicious dinner with my sibs at Jeff & Laura’s house. The gluten-free pizza Laura made was so yummy — and for dessert we had mulled wine jello with fruit and coconut whipped cream. Delicious!! And Jeff introduced me to Pisco (a Chilean brandy made from Muscat grapes). It was amazing! I love that they both live in town now!!
Happy New Year to you all!
This morning’s drawing – the flying robot! What should the caption be??? I’m open to suggestions and I will use the best idea I find or see or read or think of. If your good idea wins, you can have the card. If you want it. Or, you can have the glory that comes with having something you’ve written on one of my drawings. 😉
Hanging out with the kids this evening… and learning about this most excellent video of ‪Jimmy Fallon, The Roots & “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Cast Sing “Star Wars” Medley (A Cappella)‬. Soooo good.
The cornucopia of cat toys I discovered behind the piano while cleaning up a spill. The cats seemed to like it, too. 
Enough snow to make it look like a real winter, but not so much it was a huge headache to traverse.
Working with a really excellent therapist. 🙂 One of the things I really appreciate is being reminded of how far I’ve come in reaching some of my goals. It’s nice to take a minute to enjoy that sense of progress, even while looking ahead to new goals and new growth.
Coloring things and making pirate cards! (Tinkerbell gave us the card making kit…that Tinkerbell sure does know how to pick the perfect gifts for us!) 😀
It was lovely to take almost 4 days off from work (I worked a tiny bit on 2 of the days…almost like not working at all!) and funny to notice how quickly NOT working started to feel like the norm. Haha. How quickly we adapt!!
I super appreciate that the predicted snow waited until after I was done with errands to start falling. Thank you, snow! (I also appreciate that I found this snow effect I can use on my blog. Neat!!)
A wonderful visit with Sarah and Ida to exchange gifties. I love her thoughtful and funny gifts – including the ingredients and recipe for the amazing dinner she made me a few months ago, a box of hard-to-find seasonal gluten-free cookies, and a new game! What fun! It was also super fun to watch Ida open her gift… a purse of her own (that looks like mine, which she recently took a great liking to) filled with toddler treasures… you know, like a package of kleenex, toddler-sized sunglasses, and some crinkly cat toys. Hahaha! What a sweet end to the day.
After many days of bustling activity (all of which I thoroughly enjoyed!), it was nice to have a quiet, nearly solitary day of doing and not doing. I took a few “Oh, I guess I’ll take a nap” naps — you know the kind you didn’t know you were about to take? 😛
I appreciated the great service I got when I called Mike from the Wildlife Removal Services in Bloomington… In a couple minutes on the phone, he helped me figure out it’s more likely that there are mice in the attic than squirrels (which makes me a little less anxious!) and gave me some tips on what to look for and listen for. He was super helpful and I will for sure hire him if I can’t figure it out or if it is squirrels.
Ibuprofen for reducing my muscle discomfort! I am still happy I was able to DO the shoveling yesterday, but today a couple of my muscles were like, “Dude. What did you do?? If you’re gonna use us, you gotta give us some kind of heads up or something…” 😉
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