264: Finding Joy

Sheri + Shari over at This Joy + Ride have been reading my mind, I think. This month, they are hosting a "finding joy" project--each who comments are to list three things they'd like to accomplish this month.

Here are mine:

1. Blessings: photo a day of something to be grateful for
2. Plant our summer vegetable and fruit garden + fix compost
3. Schedule at least three camping trips for the summer + take long nature walks with husband and dogs at least once a week

Here's my finding joy photoset. I'll also post the photos here; above are tent caterpillars (which I would not recognize if it weren't for my dear friend's expertise), the newest discovery in our crabapple tree. (See also: waxwings and watching the nest.) This is how the tent caterpillars look when they are not these sweet slivers crawling about.

Tonight I meant to travel to the Twin Cities: Gertrude Stein's celebration at the university, and Chris is having a rock star themed party. But we have a week left in the semester, and I find myself too worn down to do anything but curl up on the sofa with a book, bracing myself for some marathon grading, some frustrating writing and revising. Tomorrow, we are meeting our friend Mike at the zoo; I've never been to the zoo in the Twin Cities, and I have very mixed feelings about zoos (this, after Ryan put in Happy Feet to watch after dinner), but there's supposed to be a fabulous film going on there, and when I get worn down, I think seeing sweet animals will buoy me back up a bit. This, perhaps, is making my "finding joy" challenge a bit too easy--good company, good setting--but only for tomorrow, and only that first challenge of the three. (I'm cheating a bit as we already have one camping trip scheduled, another in the works.) And this may be "easy," but it's also so important to me right now. Remembering to breathe. To celebrate spring.

I'm also adding one more challenge to myself, to urge myself into a more regular habit: read a book of poetry for each day this month. Today's: Every Room We Ever Slept In by Jason Shinder. 3.5/5 The poems I felt most interested in were at the start, and even more so the ones in the last section--persona prose poems titled "The Notebooks of [Artist]." Mainly because my own interests have been that persona / portrait poem genre; I have a few of my own (the portrait part of the equation, anyway) and hope to build on that collection.

What about you? Care to join in, either with your very own three things, or maybe with the photo challenge?