“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” – Margaret Atwood

I missed posting my Friday Five Things last Friday due to some personal stuff that came up. But I have still been finding joy in the little things. Hopefully you had some sunny moments in your week, both literal and figurative.

• Spring weather in Colorado – For those who aren’t familiar, Colorado can have pretty extreme weather swings in March and April. So while the beginning of last week we had beautiful sunny weather with temps nearing 70 degrees and I was working in the yard, over the weekend we got almost 2 feet of snow at our house. Crazy! I kinda like it though. The snow was already half melted by Monday afternoon, but there’s another storm on the horizon for this weekend.
• Journal prompts – A blogger I follow, Grace Atwood (thestripe.com) shared a link to 11 journal prompts to help you define your personal values. While I think I have a pretty good idea of those already, it’s been interesting to go through these prompts day by day and write about things I don’t usually think about. Check out the list here. So far I’ve discovered that I place a much higher value on things being ‘peaceful’ than I would have thought!
• New caulk on my bathtub – For a few months I’ve been saying I need to recaulk my tub and I finally did it! I was mostly motivated by procrastination of other things I needed to do. But, once you strip off the old caulk there’s really no going back on the project! I’m proud of myself for doing that little home improvement project on my own and it looks nice and fresh!
• A clean kitchen – I’ve been taking a few minutes every (well…most) nights to clean up my kitchen and ‘put it to bed’ before I put myself to bed. It started as a little stress reliever, both in terms of feeling productive and mitigating a messy sink in the morning. It has now become part of my nighttime routine that signals to my brain that the day is done. And I LOVE waking up to a clean kitchen with clear-ish countertops. We don’t have a big kitchen or a lot of space, so getting all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher or hand washed every night makes a huge difference.
• And finally, my Neeno – My grandmother, my mom’s mom. She passed away last week after declining health and some physical setbacks. We never lived close by and in recently years I’ve only been able to see her a few times, the most recent being for my PawPaw’s memorial service in the summer of 2019. She was a smart, opinionated woman. She was so so creative and I think I get my love of storytelling from her. I remember she once wrote a short story about some stuffed animals and their friend Chester Drawers, which was what my uncle called a chest of drawers when he was little. She knitted numerous sweaters and hats and scarves over the years. I still have at least one sweater and a couple hats from her. She will be missed, but I believe she is at peace now and happily reunited with my PawPaw.