Happy Friday!! My week’s been pretty standard. Work was good. I made it out hiking on Thursday evening. I didn’t get to yoga at all this week (boo meetings scheduled on either side of the lunch hour), but I am going out to lunch today with the lunch group! I’ve got some fun little plans for the weekend - I’m seeing some friends tonight, volunteering for a bit on Sunday, and having dinner with a friend that evening. Otherwise I’m planning to take it easy and relax and maybe go out on a hike (if I get up early enough).

Here are five happy things from my week:

1. Mac and cheese from Trader Joe’s!

2. A lovely letter from one of my pen pals (writing back will be another fun weekend activity)

3. Lots of reading! I didn’t get much reading done during the week, but I’m about to start The House I Loved, and I finished Death of Yesterday and read Guilt by Degrees last weekend.

4. Being back at my alma mater over the weekend and seeing Mike!!!

5. Hike, hike, hiking!

This week’s acts of kindness:

1. I got a wedding card for everyone to sign for the woman in my group who got married this week!

2. I overheard some women talking about how our bathroom at work doesn’t have lotion, so I bought a bottle and put it in there.

Today’s Good Thing: It’s Friday!! And I’m going out to lunch!

Have a wonderful weekend!!! 

Flowers from around my neighborhood. It’s been in the triple digits all week, and I’ve been running errands in the evenings, so I haven’t walked around the block this week - this photo is from a walk last week. Brick pathways with tree limb tunnels from campus this weekend. Tiny cactus flowers in a garden at the museum I went to two weekends ago. Boats safe in their slips outside the restaurant at which we had Mike’s celebratory graduation dinner. Just some photos from life lately. 

Today’s Good Thing: I’m going hiking!!!

This past Sunday was Mike’s graduation!!! I got to fly back east for it, and it was so wonderful to see him and to celebrated with him and his family. This weekend was simply the best, and I was the proudest fiance ever. Mike completed his degree with highest honors after defending his thesis a couple of weeks ago, and he won an award that is given to one member of the senior class based on character, scholarship, and leadership. His family and I got to sit in the President’s box at the main graduation ceremony, and it was just really fantastic to see him recognized in such a big way!!!

{A photo that a friend of Mike’s took - Mike’s up on the stage and on the big screen!!}

I am so very grateful that I was able to be there for his graduation. It was lovely to be back on the campus that he and I love so much. Life couldn’t have been much better than it was this weekend.

{Mike with his diploma after the departmental ceremony!!!}

{Campus on Saturday - so pretty and green!}

{We ate dinner at a restaurant on the water Saturday evening - it was fantastic!}

Today’s Good Thing: I’m going to have a quiet and relaxing evening after work :)

{View from my seat on one of my flights this weekend - I tried to take some photos at night, but they didn’t come out}

The world looks so different from an airplane, especially at night. As you fly west across the country, the heavily concentrated sets of lights that make up big towns and cities and butt up against each other spread further apart and smaller clusters of light appear less frequently in the blackness. Before the plane got too high on Sunday evening, I watched cars winding along dark roads like little ants with headlamps. I wondered about the people in the meandering neighborhoods tucked away for the night. Flying isn’t always my favorite thing, but I love the adventure of traveling, I love wandering around the airport and amusing myself with stories about the people around me, and I love to explore somewhere new. Most of all, I love the feeling of wonder I experience when looking down on a small part of the world from 35,000 feet in the air. 

Today’s Good Thing: I’m going to learn something new!

My yoga instructor always warns us against fear based thinking. Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real, and we once we recognize it’s falseness we can release fearful thinking and focus on reality. 

When we self-create fear about things we can’t control or the future, we should instead focus on the present and transform that fear into a more positive emotion. Fear holds us back and once we acknowledge that it is false evidence appearing real, we can let it go. Last Wednesday in class, we did a lot of poses for anxiety. It was a stressful day for me at work, and I found that those long poses and letting all my fear based thinking go was really helpful. I love yoga so much, and I really love the instructor we have at work - I always come out of class feeling open and calm. It’s quite wonderful. I am so grateful for the fact that I can go to yoga at work. 

Today’s Good Thing: Yoga!! 

Photo from outside of the museum I went to the Saturday before last.