1. vinegar water for arthritis — a miracle!
2. watching birds at the feeder
3. getting gas at $1.47 per gallon!
4. a new topaz ring!
5. sleeping in
6. staying up late
7. coloring a postcard for my daughter
8. Laughing Club of NE Ohio
9. finding a huge plastic bin full of my writing!
10. singing in our Threshold Choir to people in palliative care or hospice — sacred!

1. a wonderful massage today — ahhhhh!
2. being with the “Island Girls” — Linda, Kathy, and Rose
3. birds at the feeder — nuthatches, juncos, cardinals, wrens, house sparrows, sparrows, woodpeckers (on the tree), chickadees, tufted titmice! and more!
4. getting ideas for Christmas presents
5. Christmas cards — receiving and sending
6. a purple Christmas tree — fabulous!
7. Christmas cookies
8. singing in the Christmas choir
9. houses festooned with Christmas lights — hooray!
10. the smell of pine tree boughs

1. Still so grateful for the news last week that the cyst in my breast is benign! Hooray!
2. Teaching Zentangle to children who were fun and appreciative!
3. Sharing information and connecting people!
4. The precious hummingbird by my deck — miraculous!
5. Celery and radishes for a delicious snack.
6. A festival in our neighborhood yesterday — so fun!
7. Blackberry sage tea.
8. Dinner with my brother and husband.
9. Thanks to Tom (husband) for taking care of my car when the battery went dead today.
10.Starting on my counted cross stitch pillow again.

1. First job was at a local ice cream parlor in high school.
2. Next was in a bookstore.
3. Secretarial work at a university and then a bank.
4. Best labor of all — giving birth to Maribeth and Kevin! Hooray!
5. So much fun staying at home with them in their early years. Sesame Street, strollers, library story hours, playing on the floor — being with them was a labor of love during what I call “My Glory Years!”
6. When they were older, it was Sears, part-time.
7. Then had my own needlework store, Threadbender’s, for about 6 years.
8. Worked at my sister’s bookstore for a while.
9. Onto an advertising agency.
10. Working in various bookstores for almost 20 years.
11. Amazingly into the mental health field, which was beyond my wildest dreams!
12. Now semi-retired, volunteering in an art gallery, a library, a performing arts center, a Threshold Choir (we sing for people in palliative and hospice care), facilitating at local crisis centers for teens, and spending time with grandsons and family. Hooray! Yippee yo yo YO!

Happy Labor Day!

1.  Saw a hummingbird beside my deck the other day!  miraculous!

2.  Sitting on the patio by the fairy/gnome rock garden!  fabulous!

3.  Going to Lily Dale in a bus with great people!  fun!

4.  Lily Dale, a spiritual center in New York.  amazing!

5.  Singing with the Threshold Choir!  inspiring!

6.  Greeting morning glories in the morning!  awesome!

7.  Meeting our new foster granddaughter, Stevie!  hooray!

8. Reading the Sunday New York Times (which takes me all week!) yippie yo yo YO!

9. A new froggy fountain! gurgly!

10. Birthday lunch with the fabulous book group women! hooray!

1.  This weekend will be our 50th reunion for Firestone High School, Class of ’65!

2.  Classmates are coming in from all over the country for this exciting event!

3.  My friend, Jan, and I had so much fun making name tags for everyone.

4.  I’ve been listening to 60s music all week long to get in the mood.

5.  Tomorrow I am getting my hair spiked so I have a young and modern hairdo!  lol

6.  It’s a 3 day celebration!  Friday and Saturday nights at two different country clubs.

7.  Saturday we are getting a tour of our old school and then driving our DECORATED cars to a local drive-in restaurant for lunch!!  and then on to our favorite ice cream parlor

8.  Sunday at a local winery

9.  I have outfits all lined up for every event.

10.  Our reunion committee has had so much fun planning everything — if the weekend is half as fun as that, it will be fantastic!

— for the incredible friends in my life

— our book group, laughing and crying together (LOTS of laughter)

— reading Wind in the Willows, so delightful!

— a girl’s night out with Rose, Kathy, and Linda

— great food, out on the patio of a really fun restaurant (of course, anywhere we are is really fun!)

— grandsons’ baseball games, amazed at the unconscious courage involved

— getting ready for our 50th High School Reunion – if it’s half as fun as being on the reunion committee, it will be a blast!

— successful thrift store shopping

— grandsons, Nate and Andrew, finally picking out flowers and planting their circle garden in our yard — this is the sixth year!

— all the details of this truly blessed life!

1.  So grateful to see James here today!

2.  Baseball Summer — two grandkids, three teams!

3.  Getting a massage tomorrow from my precious Jackie.

4.  So much rain here — wish I could send some to California.

5.  Haven’t finished planting my flowers yet — hoping to get some done over the weekend.

6.  The bathroom remodeling is done — vessel bowl, fabulous shower curtain, fun towels, a floor that looks like a boardwalk and a gorgeous blue — like a turquoise ocean, with white trim.

7.  My friend Val’s surgery went very well today –very good prognosis.  Hooray!

8.  Hanging around with precious grandkids — Nate and Andrew.  So glad for Summer and our fun times together.

9.  Getting ready for our high school class reunion (okay, I’ll tell you — it’s the 50th!!!) next week.  Being on the committee makes it even more fun!

10.  So grateful for this place and these people — sharing our gratitude makes it even more powerful.  Thank you, Crystal Belle!

1.  got seated on a jury today – this will be very interesting!

2.  grandson Nate’s baseball team won tonight!  Hooray!

3.  drinking vinegar and water and now the arthritis in my hands is subsiding – yippee yo yo YO!

4.  wild weather fluctuations — HOT earlier this week, frost watch out tonight!  my hanging baskets are in the cozy house tonight.  so grateful that I knew about the frost!

5.  new books to read from the library

6.  doing a Zentangle on gray paper

7.  yummy grapes

8.  hanging around with my daughter Maribeth tonight

9.  finding the perfect shower curtain for our new bathroom – wowzers!

10.  having my friends and family vote on color samples on the bathroom wall (I want it to look like a turquoise ocean)

— weird Spring weather, wearing a hoodie this morning, very comfortable – this afternoon I was too warm – then to a grandson’s baseball game and freezing — coat, blanket, hood up!

— always glad to find gas at a good price

— full body massage — oh me!  oh my!

— grandson’s team playing really well and winning in a “mercy”

— chicken dinner with husband, daughter, and Carol #1 (I am Carol #2)

— getting my new phone hooked up in my car all by myself!  hooray!

— the trees and bushes are misty green, many are bursting forth with gorgeous flowers — thank heavens for Spring!

— Baltimore is still having trouble, but they also have been turning things around in miraculous ways — Pastors, politicians, parents, and others are being such positive influences in these turbulent times