1. Jay’s little friend’s eyes light up when they meet in the school hall.
2. M is Jay’s favorite teacher that never runs out of ideas for special activities. She was my classmate, and also a friend at one point, and I am very glad she found and followed her dream. I can see her enthusiasm, surrounded by children.
3. Em and I. TV night.

1. Sometimes things, persons, information or whatever you need just pop up. Like the book my colleague brought to the office to show me. I go through it at lunchtime, make some quick notes and copies, and feel very good about it.
2. A call from Jay just as I wonder whether they have managed to get up to our house in all this snow.
3. I take my metal ball of irritation and resentment out on the meadow, surrounded by mountains, and let the sun and the crisp air and the white rocks in the background change its color to red.

1. Texting with a Barbara, my friend from Ljubljana.
2. I want to mail a letter. I always ask for nice stamps at the post office. The lady takes a folder from her desk and shows me the latest editions she received today. We pick the Sochi Olympics’ stamps.
3. My expectations were correct and I am grateful I had asked my Mom to stay so Jay wasn’t left alone downstairs while I was having my session over the phone in Em’s room.

1. ‘I am wearing mascara today’. I smile. Don’t I know. Mom had told me about it over the phone hours ago. (The girls stay at my Mom’s before class because no pupils are allowed to come to school early.)
2. 30 minutes on the stationary bike before supper.
3. Just as I am finished with the dishes Jay walks in with a smile on her face and shows me her new skates.

1. After a week at home, lots of sneezing (10 times in a row, my personal record), a never ending headache and all the other fun that comes with a virus, I am glad to be back to the office. Still, meeting my Mom for lunch is a welcome distraction.
2. A letter for me in the mail.
3. Em walks through the kitchen door and gives me a big hug. Twice in a day.

1. '…and then he drove to the mall, parked the car, took his wallet out and said 'go get those fancy jeans now' and I said that he should have told me he was going to surprise me because I had already got them in the morning, and then we laughed…' He loves her that much to want to buy her a pair of crazy jeans sprinkled with glitter, selling at a reduced price of over 100 euro.
2. I try out a certain technique of cleaning my mind a couple of times during the day . I am not even sure I am doing it right, but I feel like it is working. My mind feels less crowded.
3. It is very windy outside. I curl up on the couch, read a book and listen to the strange sounds outside, feeling really grateful for our shelter.

1. It is nice to catch up with a friend that I hadn’t seen in over a year. And her fiancé kindly offers to send me a pdf copy of the book about healing.
2. Music from the 80's at 8 o’clock on a radio station I can only listen to in the car when I am in the Ljubljana area. It makes me laugh out loud, especially when I hear Shakin' Stevens' hit You drive me crazy from 30 years ago.
3. Jay got best grades at her music theory class, 3 A’s. Her face is beaming as she shares the big news, standing in her pj’s in the bathroom, my beautiful little girl.

1. The kind guy on the other side of the line enquires about my e-mail address and my old e-mails, and I am happy to report they are all back.
2. I dread she will start asking questions and lecturing me again, but she doesn’t.
3. Em sneaks into my bed and clings to me. I only see a part of her forehead and her hair and I get a flashback of that little girl she used to be.

1. I was sent a link to some great quotes. And I really love this one: ‘A year from now you will wish you had started today’ by Karen Lamb. I set it as my desktop background and it is striking.
2. Jay asked me to come to the gym before their training finishes so that I might see her in action. And I do. They are playing carrots, lying in a cycle, face to the ground, chained tightly to one another with their arms. It takes a while before the outcast manages to drag one of them away from the rest to help him in the next run… The number of kids outside the circle grows until only two of the toughest kids are left on the floor, holding hands strongly so the rest can’t tear them apart and they are called the winners. Jay is not one of them, but she loves this game.
3. ‘I’m having a great time.’ Jay is sitting up in her bed in her pajamas, drawing and listening to the radio, while I do the dishes. I feel pleasure knowing she is home with me, safe and happy.

1. The figurine of a shepherd tripped over onto the blue plastic stripe representing the river in my aunt’s nativity scene. We joke about the poor guy drowning. But it is all very nice and covering the same big surface as I remember it for decades, and I am really glad the girls and I have seen it before they put it all away.
2. When there is only one hour of light left and I make the most of it out on the trail, feeling so alive, wild and free.
3. An unexpected call, then a visit anticipation and eventually visitors change the pace of my slow Sunday early evening.

1. We go shopping for Jay’s first real pen to the bookstore, and just as I am about to give in and buy a low quality fancy pen with a red bows pattern to make this a good experience for her, Jay’s best friend and classmate walks in with her Mommy, and they pick up the same perfect pen for beginners in pink that I tried to talk Jay into getting instead of the fancy one. And the Jay’s is more than happy with her plain pink pen now and looking forward to using it at school on Monday.
2. A morning shopping spree, then cooking and cleaning up, but I am full of energy and I hope this feeling lingers.
3. A baby in my lap.

1. A much hated inventory-check, but I enjoy the time away from the office, away from the computers, the phones, the big and small talk, the bosses… Counting, just counting, and nothing else matters.
2. I make peace with myself, walk down to the store and back, and give her a call afterwards. She gives me her view of the whole situation and it’s painful for both, knowing how much is at stake. But we are ok.
3. Jay’s sleep-over in the big bed.

1. On my way to work I listen to Stars by Cranberries and remember the pink coo coo room at some Limerick museum in 1994. Love them both, the moment and the memory.
2. Em likes the clothes I have bought for her on sale, all three pieces, which is unexpected because our tastes are usually one generation apart (which makes it hard for me to understand why my Mom never fails when shopping for her…).
3. I am Jay’s audience when she plays the piano (yep, she is so persistent she has learnt Rudolph, the red nosed Reindeer by herself) and Em’s audience when she practices her speech for her rhetoric class. And I even get to talk and perform sometimes as well.

1. Intense pink outside our office window.
2. I skip the happy hour after the big bosses’ motivational speeches. That’s a good thing.
3. I am still shaking inside after another episode and Em’s playing Rudolph the red nosed Reindeer on the piano and Jay’s dancing keep me from drowning.

1. I pause from talking to my colleague to breath in the shades of orange outside our office window.
2. With straight hair she looks 5 years older. I don’t like it, but she does and that is what matters. She even sits straight while eating lunch.
3. Cleaning our huge bathroom is an intimidating task. But I am brave and I am fearless and I win the battle.

1. You look relaxed today. The best compliment I have heard at the office in weeks.
2. While Jay is at the gym, I go grocery shopping and walk to the library and back. Luxury on a Monday.
3. If your so-called friend doesn’t want to invite you to her New Year’s Eve party, then she doesn’t approach you post festum to say ‘hey, the 3 of us partied all night but you didn’t get invited because you are argumentative’. But at 14 that’s what some girls do. To your own kid. Em is hurt. I am hurt. She has her back turned on me while we lie in bed and talk. Nothing I say sounds right to her. What I don’t want to say is that I don’t want to see any of those girls come over to our place ever again, much less sleep-over or have a New Year’s party upstairs like they had last year, although that is exactly how I feel. But then I just tell her what I would have told to my 14-old self, and Em turns to me and we hug and she says ‘Everything’s going to be alright, right?’. Indeed, everything is going to be alright. One way or the other.

1. It seems both girls look forward to go back to school after a 12-day break. They finish their assignments, some just in time.
2. I choose to go with the flow and not outdo myself as a hostess like I usually do. For once I just sit and talk and cuddle their toddler.
3. Between 8 and 9 pm I help Jay get ready for bedtime, do my 30 minute workout, hang two loads of laundry to dry and then sit down to watch Animal Planet with Em. It’s been a full day and I have kept a positive attitude all along. Even the unpleasant conditions the animals live in in the Ngorongoro crater seem wonderful.

My word for 2014 is DO.
And my 3 wonderful things over the last 4 days have been:

1. the smell of cut wood in the forest
2. piano concerts held by Jay and dedicated sometimes to me, sometimes to the whole family and friends that came visit
3. visiting a friend that I hadn’t seen for many years, a lady that will be turning 96 in a few months