There is a voice in me these days that says, “This is what I want,” and then proceeds to tell me. It is insistent, it is wise. It says: I want more time outside. It says: I want less on my schedule. It says: slow down. It says: be honest. You don’t want to do that thing? You can just say so. You don’t need to think of an excuse.

And I am listening to this voice. It is a hard thing to do, but since I have been through the “burnout wringer” several times in my life already, I am not interested in doing that again, of getting to a point where my daily living feels frantic. So in a way, listening to this voice is a hard thing to do, and it is also the easiest thing to do, because I am well aware of the alternative: despair, depression, frustration, anxiety. No fun!

These two paragraphs aren’t to say that I’m totally shutting down and going to hide in a cave, literal or figurative. Rather, I guess what I’m saying is that I’m just feeling my way through something (as we all do), and listening to the voice inside me when it says, “Move through the feelings with your body.” I’m walking, swimming, yoga-ing through. I’m taking time to myself to just be, outdoors, and I’m refining, ever refining (as we all do), what I want to be doing with my time, and what I don’t want to be doing.

This blog is something I want to keep doing! So perhaps I’ll get on with it, and get on with Multitude Monday, hehe.

So here we are! August already, the middle of it. The bittersweet winding-down of summer, and winding-up of Fall. I love the wind, the long grasses in the fields, the coolness of the air. The budding green apples, waiting for ripening. I love this time of year, bittersweet though it most certainly is.

Here are the ten things I’m most grateful for right now: (You can read more about Multitude Mondays in my last Multitude Monday post, last month.)

131. Fresh tomatoes from the plants in the back yard. I eat them right there, sweetness plucked from the vine and tasted on the tongue.

132. The scent of field yarrow.

133. Blue sky with puffy white clouds.

134. Walking in my bare feet through the field near our house.

135. Finding blueberries there, and crouching down and picking some to eat.

136. Finding unripe blackberries there, and making a note to go back and pick some later.

137. Remembering the years when I worked in North River, and I would walk down through the fields to the river nearly every day, and swim in it, and then sit and dry off, and listen to the river.

138. Simple and yet so delicious: hamburgers and sausages with home-made french fries, at Colin and Mary Jane’s, on Saturday evening, following by some Yahtzee. These simple evenings together are what happy memories are made of.

139. Meeting many welcoming and friendly new people at my new job, which started last week. (And which I’ll certainly be writing more about, soon.)

140. Sleeping on the couch with Adam on Sunday afternoon, comfortable and relaxed as two puppies dozing.

I hope you have a good day today! May you see the multitude of goodness all around you.