Mrs. B has added a new member to the family. Meet Miss Arty.
Miss Arty is about 8 weeks old and she’s just about the sweetest thing I have ever met.
Durl doesn’t know what to think of her though, I think there are times she wants to eat her.
And there are times I think she wants to protect her.
She also is getting good at teaching Arty how to watch the chickens.
But this face just totally slays me.
And when the original exposure doesn’t turn out just right, you can play with cute puppy pictures in Photoshop Elements.
The past week, I’ve been working on resting more and getting a little bit of my housework done each day. The cleaning has helped lift a weight from my shoulders. I come home and instead of being overwhelmed I’m actually enjoying my home and feeling better. Of course the tendency is to want to sit on my butt and not do anything other than zone out, but I am trying to keep up what I’ve started. A load of dishes here, sorting through a box there, and packing another to send stuff to my mom to make her life a little easier.
The biggest thing I’ve been working is resting more. Specifically sleeping. Into bed early, sleep a minimum of eight hours and do it all over again the next night. Sleeping more has gone a long way in relieving my stress levels and making me feel better. And on the weekends, in addition to my normal sleeps, I get to take naps! Naps and siestas have to be the best thing anyone has ever come up with. I see why my Dad indulged in them frequently.
The other thing I’ve been doing is indulging in the things that nourish my soul. This past weekend, my friend Amy and I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and saw the Terra Cotta Warriors. While there, Amy helped me with my niece’s Flat Claire project. Flat Claire is an adaptation in the classroom of Flat Stanley, a children’s book where a little boy is smashed flat by a bulletin board and he can then be sent to various places to visit friends and relatives. Flat Claire saw the Terra Cotta Warriors. In a couple weeks, I’ll pack Flat Claire up and send her back to California along with some goodies.
I also indulged in going to the Houston Symphony Sunday afternoon and heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony which includes the Chorale, “Ode to Joy.” This has to be one of the best pieces of music ever written and one that I think everyone should see performed live at least once. The first time I heard it was during the movie Immortal Beloved. I fell in love with it then and it is something that I pull out whenever I want to think about the joy in life. And there is immense joy in mine right now as I feel nourished in multiple ways.
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, desparingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” —Agatha Christie
