Because last week Gale said it was okay to use this topic every week . . . I’m once again posting three things making me happy right now.

1. Longer days. The sunset is now after 5pm and that means it’s light out when I leave work.  And, right now each day has more than 2 minutes of daylight than the one before. Hallelujah.Tuesday night I drove home with a magnificent pink and orange sunset filling the sky and it made me smile the whole way home.
2. Amaryllis bulbs. I planted mine about 10 days ago (I like to enjoy the blooms after Christmas when there’s less stuff in my house and also actual room on my windowsill) and they are starting to show signs of life. Well. Mostly. I planted 3 and 2 of those 3 are showing green leaves. The 3rd one is taking a little longer to wake up but I have faith that it will soon. Once they really start growing it’s an amazingly fast process from leaves to blooms and I’m looking forward to watching that happen.
3. The Oscars are on this Sunday. I know, I know, The Oscars are flawed. Eight of the nine best picture nominees are about white people and if you remove A Marriage Story and Little Women, they are all about white men. Little Women is the only Best Picture nominated film directed by a woman. All of that points to a lack of diversity and I’m frustrated by that. AND (see what I did there, Mary?) I love the Oscar show anyway. I love the spectacle of it. I love seeing all those famous people gathered in one place. I love that my annual quest to see every Best Picture nominee pushes me to see movies I would never even consider otherwise. (I’m looking at you, Joker.) The Oscars make me happy because, as I’ve been truly learning lately, you can have more than one feeling about something that has happened. You can be happy at The Oscars and frustrated about the lack of diversity at the same time.

And there you have my list of three things making me happy this week. I hope you have lots making you happy, too.

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This Thursday I’ve got 3 seemingly random things to share with you. On closer inspection, though, I think you will see that they are all interconnected. Here we go.

1. Writing Class Radio. My life coach recently suggested that I should write a book. At first blush I thought she was crazy but ever since she said it, well, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve got ideas bouncing around in my head with regards to a memoir or maybe a fictional account of some real life stuff that happened to me. The funny thing is, though, even though I’ve worked in libraries my whole life I just don’t know all that much about writing a book and getting published. I decided that some research was in order and that maybe listening to some podcasts on writing would be a good place to start. Enter Writing Class Radio which is, just as the title suggests, a podcast of a writing class. It’s designed for people who want to hear stories and learn how to write their own. I’m halfway through season 2 and I’m finding it interesting and helpful, especially since each episode ends with a writing prompt designed to get you writing on a topic for just 10 minutes. It’s fantastic and if you’re into this thing at all I highly recommend checking this out.
2. Yoga With Adriene. I’ll be straight, I tried yoga several years ago (back when I was running) and I hated it. I didn’t like being still. I didn’t like quieting my mind. And I didn’t like that my boobs or belly got in the way of some of those tricky positions. So I decided I didn’t like yoga and I stopped. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when Juliann posted a link on her blog to Home: A 30 Day Yoga Journey with Adriene. I clicked and I read and I signed up. I’m halfway through the program (my schedule makes daily yoga tricky but I’m managing 4-5 times/week right now) and I love it. My boobs and belly still get in the way of some of those positions but I love being still and I love quieting my mind. I think all of that meditation I’ve been doing (I’m currently on a 151 day streak) has really paid off and now yoga is my jam. It’s not too late to sign up for Home and I highly recommend that you try it. It’s free and it’s fun and it’s so good for you and really, you’ve got nothing to lose so just go for it.
3. Roman Room Memory Technique. Yesterday I attended an all day workshop on Memory Training. It was sponsored by the Massachusetts Councils on Aging and was based on a program developed by UCLA to improve memory with a 4 week evidence based program. We learned a lot of great techniques, including paying attention (the first and most important rule of remembering), word association, grouping like items and more. For me, the truly eye opening part of the training was when we learned about the Roman Room. The idea is that when you have to remember things you can go through your house and place those things on objects in your rooms. For instance, you need to remember 3 random things you need to do. For me yesterday this include an idea for a future blog post, an email I needed to send to my Town Clerk, and a bill that was due. In using this technique I put the blog post idea on the couch, I put the bill on the coffee table, and I put the Town Clerk on the sideboard in my dining room. (I literally pictured her sitting there, it was great.) And then I dismissed these things from my mind but when I got home and walked into my house there was the Town Clerk sitting on my sideboard, the bill I needed to pay was on the coffee table, and the blog post idea was on the couch. I’m a visual learner and for me I think this technique has the potential to be life changing, particularly for those ideas that come to me when I’m driving the car or in the shower . . . because that’s when I come up with my best ideas! You can read more about it here and hopefully it will make sense.

The connection between those 3 things is that they all represent ways I am improving my life. Ways I am making my life richer, more meaningful, more vulnerable, and more . . . open. I’m excited to be learning and trying new things and that’s a pretty big deal for someone who is used to safe routines and predictable schedules. How ’bout that.

If you wrote a post for today please share it below. Thanks for joining me this week.

I’m a little short on time for getting this post done because meetings so today I’m just going to share 3 memes I love about reading. Here we go . . .

Those just might be 3 of the truest memes ever!

If you wrote a post for today please share your link below. Thanks and Happy Thursday . . . it’s almost the weekend!