There are so many little things that roll together into a ball that make life joyful. So, here are just a few of the little things that brightened my day:

I went to my first reading group tonight, and oh, what fun! Listening to people, brilliant people, from all arrays of life, and trying to speak myself – so imperfectly – but venturing out and doing something, reading something, and sharing ideas in a group that opens your mind to new perspectives? So thankful for that experience. I hope I am able to make many more such meetings.

Long Portland drives make for a bored mama, so I’ve been consuming audiobooks. Lots of them. I finished one audiobook, Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival and started Attention Merchants, which I’m already digging. I may have squealed with delight when I received the notification that the downloadable audiobook was ready to be checked out from my library. I am also very excited about the arrival of my Haymarket books, which should be on my doorstep in the next day or two… Whee!

I’m also thankful to my brother, who watched my little ones while I got a night out to go to the reading group and have an adulty moment! So lucky and I know not everyone has that option – I don’t tell him how much I appreciate him enough.

I’m thankful for a chat with my exhausted med-student spouse, who is in an away rotation, and full of vigor and hope in the field he chose.

And I’m thankful for the little ones who squealed with delight when they peeked out of their room and realized mommy was home and would sing them songs! I love the nightly ritual of the kissing hands, the Puff the Magic Dragons, and The Gambler (which is my daughter’s favorite song – modified slightly by Mommy to be slightly more lullaby-like and rephrase the line “the best you can hope for is to die in your sleep” with “the best you can hope for is to FLY in your DREAMS”).

That is my little ball of joy for the day. As with all things, the ball will come down to the ground – but right now, that ball’s in the air, full of love. And hope.

Dum spiro spero.