Recent Affirmations

Here we go from the last few months.

For the old lists, see my original list of Affirmations 
from March, April, October 2015, then March and June 2016, and June 2017 and here, and January and February 2018.

• Challenging CPE moments:  standing in for the priest for a Catholic family whose dad died unexpectedly; helping a teen whose father was dying; comforting a woman who wanted me to proselytize to her sister; ministering to a homecare patient on the phone until she trusted me to visit; the day the power went down and I stayed 9 hours straight; picnic table lunches with the chaplain; attending different IDT meetings;
• driving Bud to Quassy by myself and staying all day;
• more driving and errands, without my brace even;
• attending three orchestra concerts in one week;
• another Indigo Girls concert, with dinner first!
• attending compass class--and reading the compass!
• spending an evening at the Met alone with Mama to see 4 exhibitions!
• sitting through almost 3 hours of Infinity Wars;
• helping to shovel some snow and clean off the cars;
• outdoor cooking with Girl Scouts;
• taking the cats to the vet by myself;
• field trips to new worship communities for RE--AME, Hindu, Muslim;
• birding in the parks and at the beaches;
• Mindfulness retreat with Mama Goose at Copper Beech;
• finishing my online modules for my CPE, all 60 hours of them;
• grief over Murphy moving "home";
• another Zentangle retreat at Copper Beech, with my crazy and inspiring walk in the snow and ice to see the labyrinth, and all that drawing;
• Recovering from my Feb. 13 back muscle strain in about a week;

• Last but not least, ITALY!! (these are just the challenges, not just a list of fun parts, which is here.)
• long flights to and from Italy;
• walking on all that cobblestone;
• on average, 10 miles of walking a day!!!!
• traversing the slippery stairs to see the cats;
• all those stairs at the Vatican as we tried to see all the highlights!
• all the new places we went and things we tried (horses, cats, museums, restaurants, and churches);
• POMPEII by train and then by foot, all those stones, all that up and down, and it was the warmest day;
• pulling suitcases on cobblestone;
• riding the trains;
• the Duomo Museum, Uffizi, and David all in one day in Florence;
• going up and down those Venetian bridges--with suitcases!
• the steep stairs to our room in the palazzo;
• tripping on a step and yet still saving my gelato panini!
• riding in a gondola (the idea always made me kinda nervous);
• all the stairs at the Doge's palace, particularly in the "new" prison;
• speaking Italian;
• navigating the streets that were once so familiar;
• eating 20+ flavors of gelato--with NO guilt!!