At 3:30am I lay in bed and I wrote. I thought it might be a blog post. I needed a blog post. It was almost the end of the month,

I called it Things That Irritated Me Lately. It was a list, and it was an easy list to make. This last month was a difficult one for me. There was everything from People Who Treat The Bible Like The IRS Tax Code to Early Morning Flights Home. But when I had listed 9 things, I sighed and rejected it. The vibes were more negative than what I wanted to put onto my blog.

So I made a new list. While I was making it, I called it Things That Soothed My Spirit Lately. But then I thought about it, and I thought about a conversation that happened on our family group lately and something my sister-in-law said about aid stations. You know, the mental health kind. It’s a David Goggins thing.

Here are some of mine:

1. I talked with my most stylistic sister-in-law about feeling like I’m in a style rut, and then I spent some time on research and list-making and shopping and more research and experimenting, and now I’m having fun wearing clothes again. 
2. Watching Brooklyn 99 with my husband and child, and laughing. 
3. Singing along with Stephen Wilson Jr. singing ‘patches’ while I drive the state highways and county roads. 
4. My child coming towards me with a small stack of books she wants me to read to her.
5. Discovering the existence of Udemy. Basically, it’s over for you people.
6. Sharing salt and vinegar Pringles with my small daughter.
7. A conversation initiated by an acquaintance entirely about books. 
8. Sitting on my kitchen floor sometimes. 
9. When people I’m training have good bookkeeping instincts. 
10. Every time my daughter’s arms wrap around my neck. 
11. A trip out of state to spend time in conversation with some of my favorite people.
12. A fact about me is that I refused to have a BeReal when it was trendy but now I have it and I appreciate the daily reminder to be present for a moment. 
13. Beverages, of course. 
14. Writing in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. 
15. That one day where one of my bookkeepers spent the whole day at my house and we unstressfully juggled bookkeeping and taking care of our toddlers and it worked. 
16. Trees that grow flowers.
17. Reading a heavy brown book that was written before I was born.
18. The extreme blue of my daughter’s eyes. 
19. Repotting the plant that was once my grandmother’s. 
20. Writing. Always. Forever. Amen.