“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

– Epictetus (Free Stoic Club on Coach.Me)

Last time (yesterday) I was sad to have stopped my stoic walks with my daughter, today we started again and went to the market and 98c store for the first time in about two months.

It was amazing.

I guess I had been “over quarantining” myself, because I can only go outside as a group of three people, my 1 year old, my 4 year old, and I. So I didn’t know the exact rules about that, we at no time are 6 feet apart. We brought a mask for my 4 year old and myself for the store, our state leaves it as optional now, but I don’t want any problems, and actually don’t mind the cloth mask inside the stores. Anything that remotely makes sense to me I don’t mind doing…

Something that has inspired me a lot lately is Bear Grylls from Man vs Wind. I never knew he broke his back. It’s not the eating bugs and rock climbing that inspires me it’s his good attitude while doing it.

He came upon a jungle where he couldn’t light a fire because of the rain, it was cold (a cloud forest) and he slept in the rain, no fire, with some grass shoved into his jacket, one of the things he said in the morning was how much a single purple flower in tree deeply inspired him.

 I remember when I was in the Amazon, in the middle of a really dense bit of rainforest, where no human would have ever been or probably will ever go again, and looking up and seeing at the top of a tree a beautiful bright purple flower, and thinking ‘Nobody’s ever going to see that flower. That’s God’s extravagance.’ Even though no-one’s ever going to see it, he just can’t help but create something beautiful.

– Bear Grylls

I really like that idea of looking for beauty at all times, it seems that beauty almost always surrounds us, but we train our eyes to see the bad, the ugly, the evil, the mess. Probably because we have to do something about those things to survive, yet if we don’t see and do something about the beautiful things can we really ever thrive?

I’ve been working on being less perfectionistic for a few years now, but this week is the best I’ve ever done.

I took Monday off, but Tuesday started mentally regrouping instead of saying, “oh, the week is ruined, I’ll try again next week.”

Each day is a chance at life. Bear Grylls keeps saying each day you survive is a chance to get rescued. But I think (outside of the wild) each day is also a great day to pull my head out of my as is.

It was a wonderful day.

I brought one back pack of clothes to a donation bin that says it turns clothes and shoes into trees. I hope that is true, but I’m just happy to start a new life.

I got rid of my wedding dress and my grandmother’s funeral dress today, among some other clothes. It was an act of love, a promise to remember my grandmother’s example of kindness and let her live through me being patient, rather than a dress in a closet. Also to remember to care and treasure my husband rather than a dress in a closet.

It frees me so much to be rid of those ties to the past. It lets me live so much more in the present.

So, I left my house again with the intention to be lawfully off quarantine, I left with a backpack full of the past and purchased a backpack full of the future.

Some swim toys, some hot dogs, going to take the kids swimming and have a celebration lunch that we are “free” again over here (somewhat).

Just got vomited on. Shower time. Best wishes friends, much love always.