Monthly Archives: December 2013

Busyness

Gratitude
  1. Surprise packages in the mail (thank you Lucy, Garrett, Aunt Cathy, Lisa, Grandma! Oh my goodness)
  2. Our humble little tree brimming with lights and packages
  3. Inexplicably, my toddler daughter leaves them all alone except the ones wrapped in Mickey packaging. Oh dear.
  4. When she reaches new things in the house, my husband and I say she’s “leveled up”. I.e.: “she’s leveled up, she’s grabbing the garage remote and opening it now.”
  5. If you can’t find something in our house, we’re learning to look for it in very high places, where we’ve safely tucked it away from little hands, and promptly forgotten about it
  6. “After Long Busyness“
  7. Apples in winter
  8. The birds in the morning, even in winter
  9. Tree, fire, blanket, quiet
  10. This

Big mergers

Gratitude

Very Grateful for:
God’s gifts
a cloudless sky on the way to work
a quiet office
a 2014 calendar to mark up with important dates and things to remember
Christmas carols
the doctors tending to Ashley today
remembering to sweep the front porch
Dad’s happy face
finishing the extra project
Chris, sharing her baking and candy-making talent with us.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. ~Norman Maclean

medicine

Gratitude

Very Grateful for
God’s medicine
Prayer
Reading notes of Christmas activity
the heater, coming on faithfully, before we know we are cold
rain
waking up in time
6 sets of tennis
then the “Pride and Prejudice” and “Little Women” marathon
Concord, MA in snow, my favorite town.
Never cut what you can untie ~ Robert Frost

Saturday

Gratitude

1. Working out as a family

2. Logan getting me to run…something I boycotted years ago. :)

3. Coffee with Johanna

4. Reaching out

5. Good news from my mom

6. Practicing humility

7. Our neighborhood

8. Time to read

9. Moving forward after feeling stuck

10. God’s grace

Moon turn the tides

Gratitude

1. God

2. Seeing the same moon Helen saw in Texas (imagine)

3. Smiling moon

4. The moon hidden in a blanket of cloud that was like a wedding train (or a shroud)

5. The moon comfortably wrapped as if in a blanket

6. or reclining in the cloud as though upon a sunlit beach

7. brighter than the sun we need more light at night

8. always ahead

9. spinning earth

10. gently gently away

Postscript:

“Why not become the one who lives
with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world

is dying to hear?”

Hafiz (via First Sip)

slow recognition

Gratitude

Very Grateful for

God’s astronomy

seeing such a huge, beautiful moon last night on the way home

Christmas lights on houses

and Christmas trees in the windows

all the different colors of lights

my favorite Mary Oliver poem The Journey  and…

….the realization that I can’t tend to everyone who cries, “Mend My Life” just as the poem cautions

The journey of our talented city librarian, Ricki Brown, and her too short life, in memorial today

the strong, intelligent spirit she was and how she patiently dealt with people who did not recognize her meticulous work

The grace we’ve received from the heart of God is the grace that extends our arms to the world. ~Ann Voskamp

 

 

Gratitude

1. God

2. A nice card and picture from Sylvia

3. Yes, the snowplow’s sound, right, Andrea

4. Patience

5. Drivers who stopped so I could help Cassie get her car in the driveway after it was stuck on the slippery, snow-covered incline

6. Greens

7. Oh, and I like the new WordPress layout, thanks, Crystal

8. Sprung from work early due to the storm and avoiding traffic

9. A book to read when troubled with sleeplessness

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.” Penelope Fitzgerald, the Bookshop