Surprise Vegan Cupcakes!

What's better than vegan cupcakes that taste AWESOME for a women allergic to eggs, dairy, gluten and garlic?

Surprise vegan cupcakes that show up at work with a lovely card!

If you want the recipe, let me know!

Friends who don't let you flake out #runningisbetterthantherapy #friends

There shall be no excuses this morning. No "feeling rotten". No "I stayed up too late". No regret at 3 p.m. on 3 consecutive Saturdays for bailing on my friends.

With friends like this, who'd want to miss seeing them?

My other offices #bigcitycoffee #flyingmcoffee #javabowlofsoul

I cannot work in my house. I've tried and what happens is that I take out the garbage, clean the sink, wash the clothes, rearrange the furniture in my living room, scrub the toilet, call my mother or finish that scrapbook from 2 years ago. It reminds me of David Sedaris telling Terry Gross that he can't writing during the day because [I'm paraphrasing] all the sudden he wonders what his hair would look like parted on the other side [listen here, especially if you've never heard of David Sedaris].

And so I go to coffee shops. This week, as I work on a paper for a class, I've been to Java Downtown, Flying M, Java Hyde Park and today is Big City Coffee (they won today because they have decaf English Breakfast!). Thank goodness for comfy work spaces away from home!

Now that I've posted my blessing for the day, I'm back to work! Thanks, Big City!

The sheep are back!

Okay, I've grown addicted to to the sheep.

image courtesy of Creative Commons

Counting them, actually.

When 2015 ended, the spiritual discipline of daily finding and writing about something I'm grateful ceased and left a little hole where it once lived. During the last 3 months, every so slowly, the gratitude that had built up in that little place got all used up, leaving behind a melancholy that responds well to gratitude.

I also miss writing every day. There is something cathartic about forcing what's going on inside into words that I know at least a few people read.

And so, the daily counting resumes.

The sheep are back!

Being brought back to reality

I went on a run up Rocky Canyon (the Robie Creek half marathon route) on Sunday really late in the afternoon. By the time I hit 4 1/2 miles up the canyon and turned around, dusk was settling in. My speed kept increasing as the light was diminishing. It was that point of the evening when everything looks like it's in black and white, when all you can see is shadows and light silhouettes.

Suddenly above the music coming through my headphones I heard one of the greatest and creepiest sounds ever:  "who...who, who."

I stopped. I heard it again. I looked up. There it was, sitting up there on the top of a cliff, silhouetted perfectly against the deepening blue sky. I could even see its "horns"!

A Great Horned Owl! Everything in my head stopped and I was suddenly, utterly, in the present moment.

The I felt nervous and apprehensive and started having flashbacks to The Secret of NIMH  and Mrs. Frisby's terrifying visit to the Great Owl.

Sufficiently awed, fully present and involuntarily smiling with gratitude, I ran on.

An UN-birthday cake!

I came home tonight and the screen on my front door was propped open...with this!!!

How awesome!!!!  One problem:

My birthday is in August.  But that's about 6 months away, so it's the first time in my life I've ever received an UN-birthday cake!

There was a sticker on the cake telling me it is from a community group I belong to that plans an annual event in Boise.  The only thing I can think of is that at our meeting last night my birthday party came up, because no one at the meeting had come to my party.  Maybe someone misheard when I said my birthday is in August, or perhaps they are making up for not coming?

Whatever the reason, it just made my day!  Thank you so much, Sail Toads!