I completed my first week at work. I had forgotten how delicious weekends are when you’ve been working away from your home and family all week. Before returning to work, I looked forward to every day and being able to go outside whenever I wanted. I spent most of this week in front of a computer doing online trainings and reading client notes. It’s a big change not being able to be surrounded by nature all day. I’m thinking of making a poster of our ranch and hanging it up on the wall above my computer at work so I can glance at it periodically and feel like I am at home!

Last weekend we took a morning walk and noticed all the little wildflowers beginning to pop up.

Have a wonderful weekend! I’m going to enjoy mine!

This morning I awoke to the howling of coyotes. I remember when we first moved to our land, I heard a keening in the night that sounded like a bird was being ripped apart. Only now do I realize that keening was actually the sound of coyotes. They are not the bold coyotes that used to walk the streets at night in Calabasas where Stephen used to live when we were first dating. We never see them face to face. We’ve caught them on the game cam a few times, but they remain elusive except for their night howling.

I have been in a funk these past weeks. It didn’t help that I came down with the flu last Wednesday night. Yes, I was the only one in my family who did not get a flu shot. I usually do, but this year the months slipped by and hello flu. Today I drove an hour and half south to go see a Chi Nei Tsang practitioner. She described her work as feeding the organs. I feel as though I’ve gotten a tune up. Positive energy is flowing through me and I feel a lightness. It does help that the weather is warming up and the sun is shining today. I don’t remember feeling as connected to the seasons changing when we lived in Southern California compared to now. I realize our seasons here are in no way comparable to other parts of the country or world, but the slight shift in seasons, however mild, do seem to be affecting how I feel in my body. Perhaps it will take a few years for my body to adjust to the seasonal changes and make peace.

I was listening to the On Being podcast with Mark Hyman, James Gordon, and Penny George discussing “The Evolution of Medicine.” James Gordon shared how he learned that in the Qur’an there is a saying “when you do not have hope, you have to find it in the face of another.” It was a beautiful thought that inspired me once again to be that bright light for those around me. But also, to find that hope in the faces I look into every day.

And to end on a brighter note, in the four year old news world, Zoey will be marrying Zane. She is getting an early start planning her wedding and would like to have her flower girl ride around on a horse.

I’m stuck in a writing mud puddle again, so I thought I would just write and not worry about the outcome. I’ll get dirty and it will be messy and I won’t care. No perfect girl here for 2016.

It’s been raining a lot here lately. It was nice when we had freezing temperatures. Really. Because then the ground was frozen and we didn’t have to drive or walk through the mud. My kids don’t seem to mind. They like the ice and they like the mud.

Last week I went on a hike with a friend from my herbal class and we came across this lions mane mushroom on a tree.

My friend said it is edible and medicinal. If you’re interested in learning more about mushrooms, David Arora has two books, Mushrooms Demystified and All the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms with great photographs to help with identification. I’m still in search of candy cap mushrooms that grow locally here in Northern California and are supposed to taste like maple syrup.

For a long time I used to write in my journal “a year in review” before the new year. I stopped doing it around the time my kids came along. There was so much happening, and perhaps some memories deserve to be left unreviewed in the far recesses of my brain. And for a long time I would write New Year’s Resolutions. That too has ended. But I did write for 2015 that I wanted more “being time.” I find that when I am well rested, I can have “being time” in any moment of the day, even while doing the mundane house chores as long as there is a semblance of peace in the house (no whining, screaming children). For this year, for my health and the well-being of my family, I strive for calm. If I can keep my anxiety and heart palpitations at bay when there is chaos all around me, I’ll call it a good year.

I just came across this list tonight and thought it would be fun to do, so I’m passing it on to you. Join the 2016 Reading Challenge. I haven’t decided which books I’m going to read, but if I remember I’ll let you know. If you decide to do it, post your list of the books you’re reading in the comments section below. Happy 2016 to you!

It’s been a wet week around here. We had plans to have a bonfire and roast marshmallows on Winter Solstice, but it rained all day. Today it snowed on and off with sun breaks throughout the day. We managed to get out for a short walk before Zane’s nap. Zoey enjoyed walking in the water flowing through the culverts. Zane hasn’t felt well all week, so I’ll be grateful if tomorrow he wakes up feeling all better.

I think this may be the first Christmas I’ve spent away from my extended family. We decided to stay at our ranch this year to start our own family traditions. We’ve talked a lot about how we want to celebrate this time of year to make it special and memorable for our children. Today we were blessed with snow, a rainbow, and a clear sky tonight to see last night’s full moon. May you find peace, joy, and hope in your own families as you celebrate the holidays.

My little brother got married last Friday. I was planning to write him a letter with words of wisdom (as if I have any) before his wedding day, but thankfully I refrained. He joked with a friend how someone told him he’ll get a million people giving him advice about being married even from strangers, and when I heard that I laughed because it was exactly what I was going to do.

We arrived home today after being away for a week. It’s especially sweet these days returning home to the quiet and peacefulness of our ranch. There were a few surprises in the mail including a letter from my herbal teacher Donna D’Terra and photos of our herbal class. In her letter she included an excerpt from Clarisa Pinkola Estes’ book Women Who Run With the Wolves. It is one of my favorite books, but I had forgotten these lines that Donna included in her letter:

We women are building a Motherland, each with her own plot of soil eked from a night of dreams, a day of work. We are spreading this soil in larger and larger circles, slowly, slowly. One day it will be a continuous land . . .

This world is being made from our lives, our cries, our laughter, our bones. It is a world worth making, a world worth living in, a world in which there is a prevailing and decent wild sanity.

If there is to be change, we are it. If there is to be inner change, individual women must do it. If there is to be world change, we women have our own way of helping to achieve it.

So no words of wisdom for my brother, but for my niece who turned 6 today, my niece who is 4 and to my daughter, I’ll say–keep dancing, keep dreaming, and stay close to the earth.