Day 27 Mindful Moments Challenge

A beautiful sunset today, pinks, purples and oranges glowing in the winter sky.

Day 26 Mindful Moments Challenge

Soup simmering on the stove, comfort food that soothes the body, mind and spirit on a chilly Sunday.

Day 25 Mindful Moments Challenge

Tuning in to peeling carrots...watching curling ribbons of orange appear as I move the vegetable peeler along the length of each carrot. One after another, the ribbons of orange grow into a little carrot mountain.

Day 24 Mindful Moments Challenge

Once hidden by leaves and now exposed to the elements, once home to a family. Loved to look up and see this reminder of warmer days.

DAY 22 Mindful Moments Challenge

Noticing what 8 degree air feels like when I breathe in ...a physical jolt. Grateful to escape to a warm building.

Day 21 Mindful Moments Challenge

Eating a pineapple -- smelling like tropical sunshine, summer during a northern winter freeze.  Prinkly outer skin and sharp leaves hide the sweet and juicy flesh inside, an ingenious disguise for us pineapple predators. Whoever first thought to open up this strange looking vegetation must have been amazed, as I am today.

Day 20 Mindful Moments Challenge

Paperwhite narcissus, an intoxicating scent. An interesting intersection of the reality of winter and the promise of spring.

 

Day 19 Mindful Moments Challenge

Girls Scout Cookie time...requisite box of Thin Mints. Trying very hard to savor one at a time.

Day 18 Mindful Moments Challenge

Huge, puffy snowflakes fell from the sky today -- so big that they looked like cotton balls. Unexpected and magical.

Day 16 Mindful Moments Challenge

Black ice...a metaphor for life? Stop paying attention and you lose traction.

Day 15 Mindful Moments Challenge

Looking outside this morning the lawn sparkled like glitter, a fleeting moment that disappeared as the sun warmed the grass. Grateful that I didn't miss it.

Day 14 Mindful Moments Challenge

Popcorn...like snowflakes, each kernel a different shape and texture. Quite a difference when I notice the individual pieces rather than the full bowl...slowly eating popcorn is a practice in patience. What did you notice today?

Day 13 Mindful Moments Challenge

Balmy Boston -- quite an ironic statement for January in the northeast. Today as the mercury inched to 50 degrees I observed the relative nature of temperature. This afternoon sun shone and the snow seemed to melt before my eyes, I opened my car windows and remarked how warm the air felt. Yet, in August if the temperature was 50 degrees, I would bundle up in a sweatshirt and bemoan the fact that we were having such cold weather....a humorous mindful moment that I hope I won't forget come summertime...it's all relative!

Day 12 Mindful Moments Challenge

Newspapers piled on the table, another pot of coffee brewing...Sunday spread out before me. Mindfully savoring non-doing.

Day 11 Mindful Moments Challenge

Weird weather today...fog and mist on snowy landscape, thunder and lightning in the afternoon...how can I not be mindful of this? 

Day 9 Mindful Moments Challenge

Even when you think you think you "know" an object, there is always a new observation to be made, an opportunity for a mindful moment, and so it was for me with a clementine today.
Things I learned that I didn't know before:

• You can't smell a citrus smell when the peel in intact, only upon scratching or opening the skin
• Each segment is not the same size
• There were 11 segments in my clementine, but 9 in one I ate yesterday
• I found a seed in one of the segments but none in the other segments

What did you notice today?

Day 8 Mindful Moments Challenge

Slow traffic near Harvard Square in Cambridge Massachusetts today gave me the opportunity to notice the trees by the side of the road from my car window. Observing the bark of the old sycamores reminded me of the apt name my kids used to call these trees -- "cartoon trees" because they looked like the kind of trees a child would draw as a cartoon. This mindful moment gave me a pause and a smile in an otherwise busy day.

Day 7 Mindful Moments Challenge

During this time of frigid cold weather in the north, I am very mindful of icicles -- their beauty and their precarious nature. Are they a suspended moment -- liquid paused in time?

Day 6 Mindful Moments Challenge

A mindful cup of tea on a foggy, rainy day, watching the snow melt before my eyes.

Day 4 Mindful Moments Challenge

Looking up at the sky as I mindlessly loaded grocery bags into my car trunk, I was struck by the beautiful symmetry of a jet's contrail perfectly bisecting the bright blue winter sky...an unexpected mindful moment in a parking lot. What was your mindful moment today?