This week, I blogged about the movie Seymour: An Introduction  on Sunday. I’m looking forward to seeing it again in the near future. Seeing that film was truly a highlight of joy in a time that has a passel of challenges.

On Monday, I learned a new word, “quicksticks” and enjoyed using it this week. Kepler in particular benefits from being told to move a little more quickly. No, wait. I benefit from telling him to move a little more quickly. He really doesn’t change anything. It just makes me feel better.

Since I volunteered at Kepler’s school on Monday, I realized that I wanted to change my approach, and blogged about how I see the school teaching to the test, and how I feel that is shortchanging the students, and how I recognize that it is probably nigh unto impossible to do anything else with the amount of bureaucratic red tape public schools are wrapped up in.

Tuesday, I was taken with the poetry bug and wrote a poem about the The Rain of Regret. There are many times when I get bombarded by memories of things I wish I had said differently and done differently. Part of me knows that I was doing the best I could at the time with the information that I had. Part of me feels the pain of regret that it was my best.

Wednesday, I found a great list about self-care, a topic I was very slow to warm to since it sounded too close to “selfish.” All in all, self-care always necessitates a willingness to be a critical thinker. It can be easy to act without thinking, and self-care doesn’t happen that way.

Thursday was a rough day, as I processed the pain of being continually lied to by a drug addict, and how good I am at forgetting the pain of that until it smacks me upside the head again. On Friday, I wrote a part two to that post about the ongoing role my questions of my addict seem to be relevant for me. I had wanted to follow up on Thursday, but had come down with a flu-like illness that laid me low and is still demanding attention.

As a result of being ill, Friday my post on the Universe was short and sweet. Maybe I’ll decide to expand on that one sometime.

Saturday, still focused on getting well, I wrote about Voice, riffing off of an article by Todd Henry, and ending with The Moody Blues’ The Voice.

Among all of this, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and did step one of gathering up my clothing from all over the house, and then decided which items to keep by handling each one and deciding if it brought a spark of joy to me. I would say I got rid of half of my clothes, and it really is different to open my closet and see only clothes that bring me joy. I do believe I will be going through the whole pile once more as I know I fudged a few things that didn’t actually create a spark of joy.

A few days were dreary and rainy, and we went back to some colder temperatures this week. This makes the bright, sunny days just that much sweeter. The local high school show choir placed 2nd at nationals (YEA!), which thrilled my daughter, who hopes to join their ranks next year, and I knocked back a few books this week.

Did you have a favorite post this week, either on your own blog, or on mine, or both?