Not a Listless Weekend

This weekend was just what I needed. Family, friends, dogs, hiking, reading, and SLEEP.

I'm in the mood to make a list, so here it goes:

• Spent the weekend at my parents where Brian and I taught my mom and dad how to play Phase 10. I lost very gracefully.

• While waiting for my turn at Phase 10, I watched lovely birds eat at my parents' feeder. A cardinal couple, some tufted titmouses.

• Watched the beautiful snow fall periodically throughout the weekend

• Hiked some of the snowy Baker Trail with Brian, Silas, Tasha, Julie, and Marley.

• While hiking, I fell over a branch, bruised my knee, and scraped my thigh *high five*

• Drank a very satisfying Moscow Mule

• I was a total party-pooper and hit the sack before 10:00 and slept about ten hours (Am I getting sick? Is it the anxiety medication? Is it lack of sleep? Is it stress that I'm not aware of? I've been so tired!)

• Ran on the dreadmill at the gym

• Sorted through my hundreds and hundreds of books and found homes for the ones I no longer need

• Finished reading Karl Ove Knausgaard's Winter

• Received Karl Ove Knausgaard's Spring and Autumn in the mail!

Knausgaard has a keen eye and a lovely brain. Speaking of brains, he wrote a short quip about the brain as if it were a creature all on its own--where it would live, how it would eat, and many other nuances. Here is an excerpt (he's the king of run-on sentences):

"It isn't hard to imagine brains like this, lying motionless on the sea-bed like small boulders in gatherings of a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, with veils of nerves wafting dully back and forth above them. Occasionally, when the current was strong, some on the periphery would come loose and drift slowly along, bobbing like leather balls in the water, before coming to rest in a new place. What they would be thinking as they lay there is anyone's guess, but it is reasonable to suppose that they would develop further the Buddhist potential that all brains have. They would cultivate the insight that the world is an illusion, seeking the spaces between thoughts as if to rest in the emptiness there..."

-Karl Ove Knausgaard

This book is a book I never foresee tossing aside to give away. I felt some shame looking at the piles of books I'm giving away. Classics! Their broken spines, their retired covers! I don't read a lot of fiction and don't see myself reading those books again in my lifetime. And if I do want to, every library has them.

What am I going to read next? Mary Oliver's book of poetry West Wind and Marcia Bonta's (local writer) Appalachian Winter.

I am so comfortable right now. Both dogs are by my side. Brian's not here at the moment, but one of the wonderful things about being with him is that I am comfortable without him. I know that sounds weird. But I'm very prone to anxiety and bad, ruminating thoughts when I'm left alone without solid plans to keep me busy/distracted. Left alone for long enough, I can become a pit of despair (and I'm alone a lot!). I don't know if it's just me "growing up" or if it has anything to do with having a good man to share life with or if it's all coincidence, but now I blossom when alone. When he left for his parents' (they live three hours away and he's spending the night there) this afternoon, I didn't get anxious. I reminded myself that nothing was expected of me, so I sat down and finished reading a book. I walked the dogs. I was productive. I relaxed.