Pictures Of Things + Le Love List :: 8/52

February 26th, 2017 - filed under: Furthermore » Feedback

♥ ♥ ♥

This week. This week started out hard, and then got harder. This week started out full, and then got fuller! This week was just plain exhausting. And full of changes — the big, sweeping, unexpected, life-altering kinds. But I feel like I’ve been writing about those kinds of changes a lot lately.

Live big or bust, right?

Here’s what the week looked like:

We had a huge winter storm here last weekend, so windy and wild that it felled a fully mature eucalyptus tree in a nearby park.

Which made for a perfect impromptu playground.

I am a noodle slut, for reals.

His very favorite place to be, when I’m puttering around the house doing chores.

Coffee dates and chess lessons.

♥ I mean my gosh that face! ♥

Met this beautiful little spirit while taking a guided tour with an ethnobotanist who taught us about how the Native People (Chumash tribe) from our area used the local plants culturally, culinarily, and medicinally. It was amazing!

Post card writing with his grand-godmother. (“Dear Trump, Please stop immigration ban. Love, Waits”).

Adventuring, always.

“Oh mom, you can eat this plant! Definitely, I learned it in outdoor school. It’s totally edible.” Om nom nom . . . (he was right, it was chickweed).

And this incredibly spirit! This is Athena. She was hit by a car and suffered a head injury, and is no longer able to live in the wild. But that’s okay — the wonderful people at The Natural History Museum take real good care of her. ♥

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And now, it’s time for the one, the only, Le Love List!

This week was my monthly meeting at the Santa Barbara chapter of SURJ (Showing Up For Racial Justice) and I can’t even tell you how happy it made me. If you are one of those people (there are many) who feels like you are devastated by our current political situation, and you desperately want to DO something, but you just don’t know what — PLEASE look for a local chapter of SURJ in your area. This is the best, most organized, most goal- and action-oriented social justice organization I have ever belonged to, and it is amazing and it fills me with love and gratitude being surrounded by so many dedicated, motivated, and enthusiastic activists of all ages and backgrounds. It’s amazing. DO IT!!! // Waits has terrible poison oak and is itching like a fiend. But he insists that my homemade calendula salve works way better than Neosporin, so that’s awesome. // My current hair color. Feeling it. // Driving to work at the wine bar, and seeing my godbrother leading an ecstatic dance group in the park . // Vegan ranch dressing. // Feeling like I have so many amazing friends. // A week from today we’re going to be at Disneyland!!! So excited. // Lazy mornings in bed with Jeremy. Also avocado toast. // Getting so much love at Five & 1/4. Feeling the small business community that we’ve built and the vegan community that we’ve built and the weird wine community that we’ve built, and feeling so grateful for all of it. Life is so strange and it snags and it slips and then it catapults you in directions you could have never imagined, and I learned long ago to not fight it, to try and just hold on tight and enjoy the ride. So I’m holding on tight for now, and feeling the love and enjoying the wild ride.

~~~

Alright guys, now it’s your turn! I really love reading your own Le Love Lists, so please leave them down in the comments below. What are the little things in your life that make you smile this week?

Happy Sunday, I hope you have a most wonderful week!

♥

KK PhD

I want that cat necklace!

Things that made me smile this week: girl talk, fresh flowers, having a good first date after deciding to date again, having a good yoga session after not going in a long time, sparkly nail polish.
Sarah C.

I hope your hard week is ultimately ok. I feel lately like “hard week” is, for me, code for “I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle.”

My love list is short this week (it’s been a hard week!): trusting my 7yo daughter to make huge and important decisions about her own life (which makes me feel like either the best or the worst parent in the world!) // seeds germinating on my kitchen counter // a clean house // Wild Fermentation is ready for pickup at my library hold desk
lysette

I was just talking about Barn owls yesterday. Athena is stunning. Lol, your kitty, I had a friend who’s cat would do that when he rode his bike, such a chill feline. That unfortunate side effect of the rain is root vulnerability for the big trees when winds sweep through, eh? Ha, I can see Waits becoming a professional adventurer in the future ;)

<3 The vegan king cake I just baked from Kittee's Cake Maker blog. I kinda messed it up, strawberry chocolate filling blew out but it smells amazing and the icing covers up all the mishap. My partner is just about to wake up and I'm glowing with anticipation cause I know he's gonna love it!
stephie137

Dreaming of traveling. Dreaming all the things to do with the fam locally! Big kisses and arms windig around my neck and “I missed you Mommy SO MUCH!” when I pick the kids up from school. The oldest holding my hand in the mall. The middle holding my hand and making up stories on our evening walk. Having nothing on the calendar for days. CHAPTER BOOKS…finally reading some real interesting stuff with the kids. SPCA cupcake fundraisers. Warm weather. Helping a friend and being glad I had experience to share…would have loved a hug when I went through those things and I’m so glad I can do that for someone else. Wicked awesome partners. No more diapers!

Life’s pretty chill right now. Hoping to keep the streak alive
SJ

I signed up for 40 days of yoga for $40 and I’ve been 4 times over the past 6 days and it’s so good. Uncomfortable, I shed a few tears tonight, idk what I’m doing outside of basic poses, and tonight, my “worst” happened. I got in by the skin of my teeth and spent an hour next to someone from my past I’ve avoided for the past 4 years. I knew they came to this studio and that’s why I hadn’t been before. But tonight I had to get over myself and practice being mindful despise external factors. We didn’t talk, but I allowed myself to be bold and vunerable in a situation I couldn’t have imagined a few months ago much less years. It was good. Never thought I’d say that. //Joining my friends Buddhist meeting Sunday// Going for an impromptu hike after that and meeting new people // Learning to focus on what I can control – which means trying to let go of what I can’t and not fan that flame if it’s not reciprocated (cheesy but whatever, it’s real.

Hey, I’m going to do a sage cleansing for the first time tonight or tomorrow and while I’m going to do my own research, bc I know nothing and don’t feel comfortable diving in without no respecting and being knowledgeable about the practice and it’s history, I would love to read more about it from you. I love your scientific & creative brain, and you referred to a lot of your practices but not really in detail. I completely respect not getting into it but also if you ever want to I want you to know that you would at least have an audience in me!
http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

I love this, thank you so much for sharing SJ. Amazing that you found a place of peace, to be “bold and vulnerable” (love that phrase) when you needed, and to continue to work your practice through that. What a wonderful story!

I will think about writing about smudging. I actually just learned that our local Native People here, the Chumash, probably didn’t actually burn sage ceremoniously. Sage grows all over here, but they used a different plant and they dipped it in water instead of burning it. The sage-burning was brought to the area by other Native People’s coming out here int he 1970s. I like the story because it mirrors my own experience with natural spirituality/magick/mysticism — it is very personal, and always changing.

Anyway, just a few thoughts off the top of my head. I’ll think about writing more in a more formal way!
http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

Thanks Sarah, it definitely is a good week, despite the hard and the big and the full. I’m sorry to hear your feeling over-burdened. It’s the weight of the world we all carry, these days.

But seeds sprouting. Seeds sprouting are the greatest little beacons of HOPE!
http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/ Sayward Rebhal

Aww, kiss your kitty for me!
Chandra

Going back to school, always so difficult but rewarding and amazing to be the “old person” amongst the 18/19 year olds// working on being the “healthy vegan” again with a fridge full of vegetables –instead of the junk-food vegan I’ve been// saying goodbye to my old rat lady in my arms, sad but she must feel so much better// ready for spring break and going home for nephew’s 1st birthday!// coming back to read this blog again. <3
Binyamina

Getting more settled in my new home and room / Remembering that I have some incredible friends who really love me / Chocolate tea lattes / Going to the movies to watch something ridiculous (*cough* 50 Shades Darker *cough*) / Feeling a lot of grief and sadness and being able to greet it and sit with it without having to “do” anything about it /

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