Fall Equinox

So today marks the OFFICIAL end of summer. It is fall equinox and I mentioned that to Johnnie as we were driving to school and happened to see that the moon was still out. Even though it looked to be another warm day today. I for one was reminded all day, particularly a stop-and-smell-the-roses moment when I was taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon. The clouds had made it cool and breezy for just about the span of 10 minutes. And on Purdue St, the wind was blowing all these tiny yellow pollen-like flowers seemingly right at me. I thought to myself, yep, it's fall. I felt good that I was able to stop and be aware of that. Of course though it may be fall already, it was still a warm day out today and summer may just be saying I'm not totally out of the picture just yet. To that end, another SASTR moment was simply being able to go to my apartment "yard" such as it were [that's what I call the barbecue area} and grill me some Italian sausages for lunch. Made the day still feel like summer anyway. And the fact that here I am in the middle of the day on a Wednesday grilling Italian sausages on my barbecue is DEFINITELY something to feel good about. Claire liked it because I gave her a couple of pieces of the sausage. She definitely wanted more but I refrained just in case... The other thing of note this morning was that I actually got my work day started early. I had an appointment with my co-speaker for the FOM/IT conference so we could collaborate on the presentation. You know.. the one I stayed up until 1 AM for last night. Our meeting was at 8:30 AM this morning since he was in Florida and was 3 hours later than me. I went over my presentation and we actually got through the whole thing and got a game plan for the content together within an hour. THAT is a win I think. Anyway I felt good that I had something very much worthwhile to present and I think Michael my co-presenter and I will do just fine. I kept getting pinged about the event actually. Guadalupe booked my hotel for me. The CCALAC crew were asking me about it. Now I'm a little excited. If anything I get to go to Vegas right? I haven't been since... was it 2013? The week before I started at QueensCare? Couldn't have been that long could it? That was 8 years ago! Wow.

Anyway, having my primary to-do out of the way and early it felt like I had the rest of the day to do whatever I wanted. And I didn't really want to do anything except to catch up on the sleep I missed last night. I wanted to take a nap. But I couldn't. My brain wouldn't let me. Even though I put on all these frequency videos on. Although those did remind me to be mindful of my awareness. To be mindful of what I was thinking about. To ask myself all the time: Why am I feeling the way I do again? Why am I doing what I'm about to do again? It made me become aware of negative stuff that may be coming up for one reason or another and to pay attention why. So all that stuff was good. It kept me internal for much of the afternoon actually. <Note: My distinction today was that I was thinking too much. I didn't need to think at all. All I needed to do was swim in the silence> As in, I didn't really leave my couch until it was time to pick up Johnnie. And then it was back to the mundane. Back to the day-to-day. I caught Johnnie playing basketball and putting his skills that we were practicing just this weekend to use. Another classmate asked him to ask his dad if it was ok for him to stay for a bit and play in the yard. I will never underemphasize that Johnnie has already made many friends and that they want to play with him. And so that's the pic I posted. Him playing in the yard. Boy that kid can now do the monkey bars. He couldn't do them just a year ago. This IS cool. And it was cool just sitting around watching him have a little kid good time. For me I was just watching how his hair was behaving LOL. After all, I did spend 10 minutes getting it right with the product this morning. Look at the pic HE made me take. Yeah, my kid is going to end up being pretty good looking I think. Anyway we went to Panda Express Westwood and right away the Universe sent tests my way. Can you be patient? Can you sustain your positive state the Universe seemed to be asking. This as I was met with a phalanx of drivers on Olympic Blvd. Hey we did leave later than usual didn't we? Still, dinner was fine and afterwards finally finally I had time to give Claire a bath. That isn't to be minimized. I hadn't given her a bath in the last 3 weeks. This time was much easier because her hair was much shorter. And therefore she got dried up faster too. And then of course since she was much MUCH cleaner, Johnnie just had to play with her. He still plays just a tad too rough I think and he manages to make Claire growl. But I think she likes it too. It's truly is like watching a brother/sister play together. Anyway it was an early night for Johnnie since he asked if he could wait until morning to take a shower. He WAS sweaty from a full day's worth of play when I picked him up of course but that's ok. I can always wash the sheets and his pajamas. I could tell he was tired. Which meant he had a good day. I did too actually. And TONIGHT I get to catch up on sleep...