This months intention is: Practice Joy: Breathe in the fresh air. Summer is here. Smell the water. Go outside. Sit in the sunshine. One more school year is over. Celebrate your life.
I have all of June off so this is a perfect prompt for June. Practicing Joy and presence and sitting in the sunshine is all I want to do this month.
Here are some goals for June:
continue to draw, sketch, paint or do some artistic endeavor as often as I can
try to eat a salad every day now that there’s so much fresh food
do most of of HCOTF
support the kids with all of the end of year activities
Read a lot
Support J
take another class
continue medication
help D and N with their summer journeys
journal
Continue documenting the joy
Love my people
Scrap and OLW
Go outdoors, sit outside, be in the sunshine
dive deeper into ease, release, equanimity, space, possibility and see what you might want to do for each. ( still haven’t done this )
maybe figure out linode stuff for email.
work on a daily practice of giving yourself grace
Be ok with not getting much done, rest.
be in the present moment, don’t count down the days
This is my list for now.
June, I got this. Let’s do this. Let it be full of joy.
May was a busy month with a lot of commitments, a lot of social time and a lot of rushing around. By the end of the month, I felt really burned out and needed large amounts of quiet time. I took what I needed to ensure I could rebuild my energy.
This months intention was to Deep Joys: Take some time. Be still. Listen to the whispers of your soul. Hug your people. Dig deep and see what brings you deep joy.
I definitely hugged my people and spent a bunch of time being still. I had a few days of complete alone time though I didn’t spend a lot of time digging deep. But that’s ok. I spent time with my parents. I went to Boston and I did a lot of painting.
Here are some goals I had for May:
continue to draw daily – finish out the 100-day project – Done
Go back to nourish plans/list – or at least make progress – didn’t really do this I’d say
do most of of HCOTF – also did a poor job with this in May, there was too much going on
Jeff’s graduation in Boston – did this
Parents here – spent a lot of time with my parents
Support J – spent a lot of time on this, too.
celebrate Nathaniel’s birthday party – yep was lovely.
connect with at least 6 friends – connected with a lot of people in May
help D and N – done
journal – daily!
Continue documenting the joy – daily too!
Love my people – loved my people so so hard.
read more, still. – i really upped my reading game in may
Scrap and OLW – i did some of this but not a lot tbh
Go climbing – here, too, some but not a lot lot.
dive deeper into ease, release, equanimity, space, possibility and see what you might want to do for each. – didn’t do this one.
figure out linode and cloud stuff for email. – i did the cloud stuff but not linode
take care of karenika email – done
find a class to take – done, i took a may challenge and signed up for 5 things.
work on a daily practice of giving yourself grace – likely would get a B- on this one but working on it.
Be ok with not getting much done, rest. – i tried to do this especially at the end of the month.
May was relatively hard for me, too. I spent a lot of time with my parents, traveled to Boston, and then socialized a lot. I was very tired and worn out about two thirds of the way and gave myself a lot of grace. It was supposed to be one of my two off months and I think it was more hectic than I would have liked. But I took some hard steps. I started taking care of myself. Doing what’s needed and I am proud of myself. I am letting myself rest.
I will continue to try take it each one day at a time and look for the joy again and again. Because I know that joy is possible in each and every moment.
I loved the time I spent with The Old Place. This is the story of Mary Alice and Ellie and Josie, all of whom live in a small town in Texas (Billington.) Ellie and Mary Alice live next door to each other and are best friends (both are also single moms of children who’ve died.) Josie is the New Yorker wife of a Billington resident who comes back home to take over his family’s business and she takes a job being a schoolteacher after Mary Alice (unwillingly) retires.
There are several other lovely and interesting and textured characters but most of the story revolves around these three women and you can’t help but fall in love with them, as flawed as they are. Even though Mary Alice wasn’t a likable character, I still found myself caring about her and wanting things to work out for her. You can tell that she hasn’t had it easy.
This story is about family, small towns, sisterhood, friendship and so much more. I loved every second I spent with it.
with gratitude to netgalley and Penguin Putnam for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I’ve never read MKA before. This was fun and engaging and I enjoyed reading it. It was a light read and I am not sure it will stay with me but I still liked reading it.
I love Emezi’s writing. This is not my favorite novel by them but I still love their writing and this unusual story of a woman who suffered a great loss and has three different romantic partners is no exception. Beautiful writing but not an interesting plot.
This book was really quite depressing. But it was also really well done. This is the story of Ansel Packer who is about to be executed on death row for murdering multiple women. The story is told by him and several of the women from his life: his mom, his wife’s sister and the officer who caught him. It’s a layered and captivating story.
i read about this in a book I was reading and I am so glad I decided to take a chance on it. It’s not what you think it will be and it’s also exactly what you think it will be. Matt Haig is such a wonderful writer, for me. I enjoy his books.
This was a hit and a miss for me. Some of it was nice but the characters never really stuck with me and so I lost interest in the story even as i was reading it.
