Admiring the sunshine from my perch

June 11, 2026

I was asked to be part of the Global Writing Challenge hosted by a group of bloggers. My Fashion Files partner Marsha invited me to join in the writing fun.

Don’t you love how we can go shallow with fashion talk but also go deep with profound writing? That was said “tongue in cheek”. And is fashion really shallow? If something allows you to step out and be your best self, maybe that isn’t shallow at all?

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

This month the topic is sunshine, and I’ve had a ton of inspiration for this topic lately. No, I haven’t been to a sunny destination. I live in Kentucky. We aren’t known for sunshine but rather for horses and fried chicken, right? But, even so, we also have sunshine here!

If you don’t know me, I was a high school Spanish teacher for 31 years and have lived my life on a school calendar for almost 50 years. I am a mom to twins who will be turning 24 this year. I am a wife and dog mom, too. Over the last year, I lost my last remaining parent, I retired, and my kids moved out after living at home for a year after college. I have had a lot of change. I have shed a lot of tears and have questioned my next chapter.

Chasing Sunshine at Home…

I have friends who only seem happy on vacation! I had an epiphany in my 30s (thankfully it was at a fairly young age) that I have to also find joy and happiness at home; I can’t wait until I’m on vacation to enjoy the sunshine that surrounds me! I can’t wait until “one day when I live at the beach” or “one day when I have time”.

I asked myself what I personally enjoyed the most about my vacations and one of those things was drinking my morning coffee outside. I also enjoyed a glass of wine outside in the late afternoon. So, I did my best to create outdoor spaces at home to mimic that feeling and to do those things at home. It made a huge difference to my everyday life! I have recently heard how beneficial morning sunlight/sunshine is to a human. If 99% of your life is not spent on vacation and only 1% is on vacation, that is a sad state to only be happy when you are away. I have other friends who have gorgeous outdoor spaces that they never use. A true tragedy, in my opinion! Are you willing to only be happy 1% of your life?

You can do so many things outside – you can eat your meals, drink your coffee, pay your bills, read your book, talk to your friend on the phone, fold your clothes even! I want to encourage everyone to do something outside that you normally do inside.

Even when I had to go to school each day, I made it a point to drink my coffee outside and to get outside after school, too. I was able to walk to school and did this the most in my last couple of years of teaching. If you have a dog, they force you outside, right?

One of the hardest part of my job was that I was kept in captivity. I had no ability to go outside for most of the day. I did have two windows, and I told the students that we would use natural sunlight and open the windows as much as we could.

I am a firm believer that kids need nature and sun! I loved that my own kids walked to elementary school and on the way home, they had to pass the school playground, so of course we played there after school. I also had rules about playing outside and forced it even when they didn’t want to. Adults are no different as they also need nature and sun.

I captured a cool view of the sunshine in this photo.

So, I have enjoyed more sunshine this past year, and I needed it after some tough life things in my immediate and extended family. I have had all the changes that I mentioned, I have had some friends disappoint me, and there are some other things that aren’t my story to tell. In this human journey we are on, we need the cloudy and rainy days to appreciate the sunshine. Because of my job where I was stuck in a building, I appreciate my sunshine more now.

I have had the chance to notice the differences between morning sunlight, afternoon sunlight, and evening sunlight. I have enjoyed the fall sunshine, the winter sunshine, the spring sunshine and the summer sunshine. What a gift to get to notice and enjoy this! I have always struggled to get through the month of January but this year I had the ability to get more sunshine and that really helped.

The word sunshine is also used to denote warmth and positive feelings about the human experience. “Sunshine” can be used as a term of endearment as in “Hello, sunshine!” I want to be sunshine for the people in my life.

We also say one has had “dark days” or that they are in the “sunshine of their life”. No one wants those dark days but we all have had them or will have them. Without them, we take the sunshine for granted whether it be literal or figurative.

Sunshine can truly heal us. Sunshine can change our moods and our outlook. I will notice that I am in a funk but then the sun comes out and it’s like a switch has been flipped. It is powerful!

It probably seems like this has been all over the place, and it’s true, but it all makes sense in my brain. My message is to find the sunshine now and don’t wait for the sunshine later. This message is as much for you as it is for me. There is sunshine all around us in every season and in every iteration. We have to look for it, stop and enjoy it where we are in the here and now. We have to enjoy it when we are at home. We can’t wait for a sunny locale.

What is your best advice on chasing the sunshine in your life either literally or figuratively?

Click here to see all the Sunshine entries!

Amy

19 thoughts on “Chasing Sunshine”

  1. For me it’s the other way round, I perk up when it starts raining, it has been like that from when I was a child. It gives me such a cozy feeling that I don’t get from the sun.If I had a porch (and a catio), I might sit outside more often, but our little garden is quite visible from different sides and I find that kind of distracting. Nevertheless, if it’s not too hot and loud for me, I like sitting there with a book.

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  2. You know I LOVE to eat outside and read outside and walk outside– all preferably in the sun though I don’t mind cloudy days. This morning we’re heading out strawberry picking!

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    1. You do take great advantage of getting outside! Yay – we have really been keeping strawberries this season. We put them on ice cream and in salads the most.

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  3. Really nice post- I like the subject and the words you penned, er, typed, well you know what I mean! I think being outside is really important for our well being. We weren’t meant to be inside all of the time! I’ve been a runner since I was a teenager and mostly run outside so I’ve spent lots of time outside doing that. You mentioned windows in your classroom- in one of the buildings where I sub, I number of the rooms are interior meaning there are no windows. In fact the long(ish) sub job that I did in Nov. and Dec. was in a windowless room. How wonderful that you’ve been able to appreciate the sunshine a lot more this past year. (The gifts of free time/retirement/break really are numerous, aren’t they?)

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    1. I agree! I ran for many years and never thought the treadmill was as good of a “drug” as running outside. I walked to school a lot and that really woke me up.
      The teachers at my school all had to start with interior rooms and then they clamored for the window rooms as teachers retired or transferred.
      I really treasured my windows. If your windows broke, they bolted them shut because they were so old and couldn’t find replacement parts. I had a rule that no one touched my windows. Some did and I told them why it was my rule. I said, “I have to live in this room, and you don’t”.
      They really are. I do miss teaching (the good parts) because teaching is in my blood but it can be an unhealthy and unbalanced lifestyle. I don’t think we are doing it right in many ways.

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  4. Oh, we would be fun outdoor neighbors! I love, love, love being outside. I will forever be grateful that we moved to a sunny state 20 years ago. I still miss the life I had in the Midwest, but the weather here makes all the difference in my life. I agree, we have to bloom where we are planted…vacation is nice, but I would rather invest in making my home a place I want to be.

    I’m not sure whatever happened to the headlines and the medical research that “proves” that sunshine can heal – I felt like I saw a lot of it in the early 2020s. It is such an essential thing to life!

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    1. As long as you don’t like to use your leaf blower. I feel like we have pretty nice weather here. The only two months where it is hard to be outside are January and February and we usually have a couple of nice days in Feb!
      It really is!

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  5. One of the best decisions I made was leaving my public school job where I worked 10 months a year and moving to the virtual school where I work 12 months! Sounds crazy but I hated the mindset that all we did was count down the number of days until the next break! I didn’t want to live my life that way.

    As much as I love vacation I love my everyday life too. What I enjoyed most about vacations was spending time with people – either friends we went with, visited, or just my family. So I try to have more of that, I don’t feel a need to get away or plan the next trip.

    I think finding the sunshine means different things for different people but I have found mine!

    xo,

    Kellyann

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    1. Yes, girl! That’s how I was living! Each August, I felt like I was getting on a roller coaster. I think it’s a gift that you and I figured out how to be happy at home. Even though teaching was hard, for most of my years I was 7:40-2:20 and only in my last couple of years was I 8:40-3:20. The earlier schedule allowed me to have lots of day left. It was only an hour but it made a big difference in traffic and ability to do things.
      It really does! Thanks for reading!

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  6. I loved this! It’s all so true. I love your motto of finding it everyday, and not just while you’re on vacation. For me, chasing sunshine is having things to look forward to. It can be something as big as a weekend trip, or it can be something as small as planning pool time with my best friend one day a week. I’m an eternal optimist, so this is easy for me.

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  7. We very rarely go on vacation so make the most of it at home and a big part of that is getting out into the sunshine. I go outside every morning with a cup of tea and it really gives me a boost for the rest of the day. I used to be the same with my girls, forcing them to play outside just so they would get some sunshine.

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  9. See, I just knew this would be right up your alley! While I am not the biggest fan of literal sunshine, I do love the idea of being someone else’s sunshine as well as finding sunshine wherever and whenever we can. I was lucky when I was teaching…my entire west wall was windows. Of course, it was miserable when we didn’t have AC, but it was always bright and shiny. I think that’s my biggest problem with our home now…not enough windows! I am going to start having my breakfast on the back porch…love that idea!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com

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  10. I’ve been meaning to put a hibiscus flower into a drink for so long! I like a bit of sunshine but not when it gets too hot, as it was recently. Fun post! Greetings from London.

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  11. Find your sunshine and make it a daily priority – YES! A very important message. I also grew up in a time when playing outside was absolutely routine, and I agree that being outside in nature (and sunshine) is something we all need (esp. kids). I hope that your retirement is making it easier for you to spend time experiencing your sunshine (literal and/or metaphorical)!

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