GRATITUDE: A day without rain! Took the opportunity to do a top of the parking structure walk on the way to school with the kids and admire the sky instead of the underside of our umbrellas. Also for the purposeful connection time with Jasper and Juniper this week (coffee dates while at ceramics and hip hop) at least for now it seems like it’s making other challenges with them more manageable and they are willing to collaborate and problem solve them together, and just talk to me about the little things.

FOCUS: Things for today to fill my bucket – Yoga chiropractor appt, “Self Regulation for Screen Struggles” with Stuart Shanker, library visit, contemplate garden plans continue art closet/kids library purge and see things go to the buy nothing group swiftly.

INSPIRATION: How to Be Un-Dead: Anaïs Nin and D.H. Lawrence on the Key to Living Fully on The Marginalian blog

“When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist,” Henry Miller wrote in his stunning letter to Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903–January 14, 1977). “Try to solve it, or conquer it, and you only set up more resistance.”

---

GRATITUDE: Met Laura for coffee today, it’s been years since we last saw each other in person! Good to catch up in real time and notice myself talking about our family’s last couple years with a different kind of perspective versus the “in the weeds” mentality that has become all too familiar.

FOCUS: Find the living room floor again.

INSPIRATION: Still thinking about this past Tuesday’s Bright & Quirky coffee & connection and the reminder to keep celebrating the wins no matter how big or how small.

---

GRATITUDE: Paul is sitting on my lap while I write this in bed. He never sits on our laps! Well, only if he’s very hungry in the mornings and his breakfast time has passed. But it’s night now, he is fed!, and he’s sitting on top of me.

FOCUS: Continued slow purge of stuff. Celebrate the wins of the past year – Juniper’s now single vision, Jasper’s road to a diagnosis and the fact that we are finding new rhythms to work through the rough patches, the relief of better understanding my kids and the shift in my own personal mindset that they are doing the best they can with the current tools they have.

INSPIRATION: Delving into some other aspects of the Calm app this evening.

---

GRATITUDE: Evening puzzle time around the table with the whole family, and hearing Juniper say, “We should do more puzzles.”

FOCUS: Meal planning/cooking, ask Jasper about OT, scheduling overdue appointments for kids, purge kids’ clothes,

INSPIRATION: Developing a Rational Approach to Supplementation for Health & Performance, Huberman Lab podcast episode released January 9, 2023

https://hubermanlab.com/developing-a-rational-approach-to-supplementation-for-health-and-performance/

---

GRATITUDE: Spent 17 minutes on the mat with some yin yoga. Happy to be reminded how good this makes my body feel while simultaneously feeling all my body.

FOCUS: Tomorrow marks the first day back to school/work/normal routine after 2 long weeks of a pretty great winter break. It will be a hard and tiring day for all of us, so relish today. Be present with the kids, really listen to what they have to say.

INSPIRATION: Started listening to NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman.

“The Geek Syndrome has been the emergence of the concept of neurodiversity: the notion that conditions like autism, dyslexia, and ADHD should be regarded as naturally occurring cognitive variations with distinctive strengths that have contributed to the evolution of technology and culture rather than mere checklists of deficits and dysfunctions.”

---

GRATITUDE: Happy for suggesting a 4-1/2 mile hike at Purisima Open Space Preserve with Eric on Jasper & Juniper’s FP adventure day despite it being the harder, steeper trail. Being outside amongst the trees and hearing the wind was a good way to ground myself and reset. I’ve been feeling tired and the general let down after our Seattle trip, and today was a good day where nothing was expected of me.

FOCUS: Enjoy the day and be present with Eric, remember it is few and far between the time that we get to spend alone time together.

INSPIRATION:

---

GRATITUDE: It’s the last full day of winter break that I get to spend with these two. Perhaps it was the knowing that next week they will be in school again it will probably be a hard transition, but I really relished and enjoyed every step of this 4-1/2 mile walk together.

FOCUS: Whatever it takes, get outside before noon with both kids.

INSPIRATION: The Super Mario Effect TEDx talk by Mark Rober.

---

GRATITUDE: The side effect of having a natural torrential downpour soundscape is that everyone is still sleeping at 7:30am.

FOCUS: Find joy in the rainy day, even if it means trekking outside in search of a fallen eucalyptus tree blocking both north and southbound Caltrain tracks.

INSPIRATION: Listening to Ima Robot’s Lover’s in Captivity.

---

---