Hey, all you wonderful, wonderful folks. Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! Although I felt a bit down at times yesterday, overall I had a really good day. I had to work, but had a good productive meeting and my colleagues brought coffee cake and tea and birthday wishes. My dear friend sent flowers to the office (gotta love that). Two of my sibs and my 12-year ex-bf (my friend the last 10 years)called me at work with happy wishes. I got emails and nice cards.

Back at home, more cards. I was finally able to return to the gym (it's been closed for renovations -arrgggh!) and do my hip-hop dance class. MAN! Did that feel good to sweat to a powerful beat (unfortunately, I'm still such a white gal, but I love this class). And my sweet, sweet neighbors made me a special birthday dinner and god, was it good! I was so touched.

I got a very nice card from MIL saying she hasn't seen much of me and would like to remedy that, would like to take me out to dinner soon or have me come visit. She also thanked me for my thoughts and condolences on BIL, and said they had a beautiful oceanside service.

I sent H a brief email yesterday because I was so proud of my little old dog. Despite terrible lameness in her hindquarters, she promptly dispatached a large rat in the basement. H wrote back a sweet (especially considering that we're "taking a break") email within a couple of hours:
Quote:

She's a tough girl, lame legs or not. That was her birthday present to you. Happy Birthday!


That was nice to hear from him.

So, all in all, a day that could have been blah was pretty good!

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These are the "piecing myself" goals I've been working on lately:

1. Doing a kind of walking meditation at least every other day. Getting in the moment in nature, listening, seeing, smelling what's around me, instead of being caught up in drama in my head. I'm getting better. (Hey, did anyone hear Felicia Rashad on NPR yesterday? She was so inspiring!) This has had an interesting side effect of bringing back some childhood memories of being in the moment.
2. Applying being in-the-moment to being with people at least once a day, giving someone my complete attention and listening. This can be quite surpising, and folks really like it.
3. Doing the Big You/Little You dialog from the Journey book. This brought up a lot of resistance in me and I thought it was pretty goofy/embarrasin', but it has been a rewarding experience. Basically, it's a way of connecting your emotional self with your best adult self, while simultaneously strengthening that adult self. If that's too much psychobabble for you, oh well! I can just say that it's doing some good stuff for me.
4. Working on figuring out a new future path and attendant goals.

On the bad news side, a rough talk with the vet yesterday about my wonder dog -- she is having issues with her spine and it will probably be a general decline until her quality of life is not good enough to make her stay around. Do y'all know how much I love this dog? She has been through thick and thin with me. Trying to wrap my mind around this...sigh. I want to give her the best I can until that time, though.

Anyway, Excelsior!
Love to all. You guys rock. Thanks for the continued support. What a difference you've made in this past year!