Tuesday, January 31, 2023

January Twenty-Twenty-Three

 


"As we open the door to welcome a new year, 
We bless each other.
May we welcome this year with openness, acceptance, and kindness--
For each other, for our neighbors, and for ourselves.
May we cultivate real love,
Creating little pockets of home wherever we are…


May we choose the community’s good over self-giving love. 
May we listen more intently and lovingly, and serve one another better.
Give us opportunities to practice the hope we long to embody.
May ignorance, fear, hatred, and violence towards the other cease. 
Instead let communication, connection, communion, and celebration enlighten these spaces.
Expand our sense of home so that we find and create belonging well…


Bless us as we fully show up for our lives.
May we fall in love with our own becoming, and
listen more to our own souls when we're in pain…


May we embrace uncertainty and mystery 
while grounding ourselves in love and connection on every level. 
And may we know we - every single one of us - are Beloved…


Giver of endless grace, tune our hearts to hear the truth of your sufficiency and our enoughness.
May we be blessed to accept our challenges with grace and dignity.
Thank you, author of the Earth, for writing on our hearts 
the shared moments and lonely ones in this past year. 
Help us to lean into our secrets, hopes, loves, and pain more in the coming year than we have in the past one…


May laughter come as easily as tears,
joy as profound as our sorrow,
May we pursue play and wonder in the midst of the rhythms of the day to day
 and find the dance within each moment…


May we explore new pathways of healing,
Even in the midst of the wilderness of uncertainty. 
May we be given companions and true friends in our journey.
Give us enough light to see the next step and the next and the next.
As we cross this new threshold,
May we be met with love." 
 -Sarah Bessey 




Monday, January 30, 2023

Life in the UDistrict

 

This is so funny to me..... 
(and quite surprising it took only 8 years to have this show up in our little library_ 

Sunday, January 29, 2023

5 more things

 

continuing to count the gifts.... 
5 more things to give thanks for from this weekend...
Saturday morning walk with Kristine (whom I met in 1999 when I began working in Tukwila and who continues to be such an encouragement) 

Happy 28th to Micah on Saturday (with a monster cookie recipe) 

happy hour with colleagues from SPU on Saturday night (Nyaradzo, Kirsten, Julie, and Nalline) to celebrate two of them who had January birthdays 

beautiful photo from Taylor on Saturday from where he went biking 

signs of spring a few months away (picture sent from Catherine White this weekend) 

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Night Out

Hard to believe that Taylor's senior year is halfway over this week..... 
and glad we could get him to come out to dinner with us tonight. 

Soaking it up....


Friday, January 27, 2023

5 Things

Research has shown that gratitude (even just writing down 5 things each day) can improve general well-being, increase resilience, strengthen social relationships, and reduce stress and depression. The more grateful people are, the greater their overall well-being and life satisfaction. I'm sold! So here are my 5 things today.... 

1. our bunny continues to be drawn to the light 

2. Poppy is the best greeter at the door hoping that I will give her some treats 

3. Green Lake walk with Kathleen on Thursday 

4. best hot chocolate in town 

5. new haircut and spontaneous Hands for a Bridge (Taylor's class at school) dinner tonight 

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Throwback Thursday 1.26.23


January 26, 2003

January 26, 2003 

January 26, 2005 
January 26, 2006 

January 26, 2006 

January 26, 2007 

January 26, 2008 

January 26, 2008 

January 26, 2008 

January 26, 2008 

January 26, 2009 

January 26, 2009 


January 26, 2010 

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

5208 16th Avenue NE Spa

Poppy is continuing to enjoy the spa at 5208 16th Ave NE. I've found her in front of the full spectrum light that Jason has left in the living room for her on the last several mornings when he has gone on a bike ride, and we think this is going to extend her life for many years to come. :) 

I sent these pictures to Anna this morning, and she then showed them to her roommate Katie who said, "you didn't know Poppy was going through it until this moment." 😂





Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Awe Catcher

I listened to Kelly Corrigan's podcast the first week of January (you can listen in here) and she shared about an article from the New York Times she read about the power of awe.


Here are a few quotes from the podcast: 
  • Being an 'awe-catcher' is pretty transformative...
  • You can go from a really crap zone to something totally different with a walk where you are training your eye to be wowed by something....
  • There's something about considering the vastness that can take us into this kind of elevated state. 
  • What Keltner is saying in The New York Times article is that awe is totally critical to wellbeing. It's as important as love. The health benefits are totally proven- calming down your nervous system and triggering the release of oxytocin which is the hormone that has been interpreted by us as love." 
  • "It also has psychological benefits. Many of us have a critical voice in our head telling us we are not smart, beautiful, or rich enough. Awe seems to quiet this negative self-talk- by deactivating the default mode network- the part of the cortex involved in how we perceive ourselves." (from Keltner's article on awe) 
  • Sharon Salzberg (a mindfulness teacher) sees awe and wonder as a vehicle "to quiet our inner critic." She believes that awe is the "absence of self-preoccupation." 

Below are some moments of awe that Jason captured from one of his bike rides last week. 






Monday, January 23, 2023

10 Years Ago Today

 I stumbled across this and just had to share this little window into a decade ago.... 

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

An Ode to Puppy and Hobbes


Anna brought two snails home from school from the class science kit and the 4th grade unit on organisms in December. She has been taking care of the snails, giving them food, and replacing the water in the jar with warm water faithfully. However, she came home today to find that they had died.  Her little tender heart just could not bear it and she began to cry.  
I asked her if she wanted me to get Puppy and she nodded. So thankful for this faithful little friend that has dried many a tear through the years. Below are some pictures of Anna with Puppy today. 
I also included one of Taylor with Hobbes, his favorite buddy, 
and a story that is an old favorite too as an ode to Puppy and Hobbes. 







My elephant can do almost anything.
He can stand on a wobbly stool, and he can balance on a balloon.
Watch out! It will pop! “Don’t worry,” my elephant says. 
“As long as I hold my breath, I’m fine.” 
The other day he even stood on top of the coffeepot. “Look what I can do!”
But when Mom saw him, he had to get off, of course.
Sometimes he climbs up the wall and hangs from the ceiling. “Hello down there!” he says.
But when he tried to wave, he fell down. He wasn’t hurt, but I wrapped him in bandages, just in case.
He doesn’t like bandages very much. “They slow me down!” he says.
Now he is learning how to walk a tightrope- very, very carefully.
When we play together, he always wants to get dressed up.
But we don’t have any clothes his size so I paint him instead.
Today I painted him in stripes. When he wiggles he looks like fire! Everybody is scared stiff- except me of course.
My elephant loves hats. He wears a different one each day.
Some people have hats of every color. My elephant changes colors for every hat.
At night, he always wants to sleep with me, but he is much too big.
“All right, all right, I’ll get out.” He sleeps at the foot of my bed.
My elephant is never afraid of the dark. He has special night eyes.
Even when it’s pitch black, he can see everything! He can eve see through things.
When our cat walks across the room, he knows exactly what she had for supper.
When I go to school, my elephant is very sad.
He just stands in the corner and groans.
You can hardly recognize him.
But when I come home again, he runs to meet me,
because there’s one thing my elephant can’t do…
he can’t do without me! 
by Anke de Vries