What Is Saving My Life Right Now

This post is part of the synchroblog that Sarah Bessy is hosting, inspired by this lovely post she wrote yesterday.

My gorgeous squishy baby boy. I give him baths in our kitchen sink and he splashes in the bubbles with his sweet beautiful bare arms and legs. I nurse him to sleep at night, his ears perfect pink shells and his breath even and deep. We had rain the other night, something you really stop and notice in this arid valley, and we could both smell the summer rain through the open window as he drifted off to sleep. 

Rob's daily presence in my life. I really can't say enough times or with enough emphasis how wonderful it is to have Rob finished with his medical training. He is available, home, here more now than he has been since before Grace was born. We went from years of 80-hour work weeks to suddenly when we moved here he works 4 days a week. I am still so thankful, now two years into this phase of his career.

Organizing, cleaning, purging. Baby boy clothes are ready to go to a friend with a littler baby than mine, little girl clothes are packed in a box to send to a friend one state away who doesn't think homemade clothes are strange, my email inbox seldom contains above five items, and I did a giant cull of my RSS reader to only keep the things that matter to me, the things that really make my life happier.

Employment. It's looking like I will soon join the ranks of the gainfully employed. This week I was offered a job writing astronomy content for an online education company. It's part-time, flexible hours, working remotely, etc and I think it is going to work out.

The pleasures of summer food. Cold-brewed coffee, apricots and berries, rosé wine, lemon cucumbers, slaws and salads, anything grilled outside.

The promise of honestly cool weather in another 6-8 weeks. Summer in Utah is beautiful in ways summer has never been for me elsewhere, and it is blessedly not too long.

Reading a summer-y novel in stolen minutes here and there. It was great. I need to read more.

Beautiful children's bodies in swimsuits, full of joy, utterly lacking self-consciousness.

Grace sprawled on the couch absorbed in book after book from the library.

The way Violet pronounces "marshmallow".

Playing piano.

YouVersion.

Naps.