1. God

2. A kind dentist, willing to consider alternatives, and helped alleviate David’s pain

3. so he could enjoy his birthday today

4.Hannah singing at her college’s graduation

5.and a successful completion of her first year

6. Hard rain, no need to water plants right away

7. Basement appears dry, good work by Pierre and Tony

8. Paul stopping by to share information I wouldn’t hear otherwise

9. Dancing with Cassie. We had an argument the night before,  “How am I going to dance around you tomorrow,” she asked rhetorically.  Instead we danced together.

10. Being whole and being held

1. God

2. Azaleas in different colors

3. Mouth

4. Throat

5. Digestive system

6. Kind letters from Julia and Lindsey

7. What it is

“Gratitude turns grief a different color.” Katrina Kenison

1. God

2. Spring nights

3. Hannah motivated to do the requirements for her program

4. Having the patience and concern to help someone

5. And suspend judgment

6. Reminders from We Love Gratitude to appreciate the present moment

6. Learning from Lindsey about the Here Year

7. And joining the Twitter party late because I wasn’t

8. Containers

9. opened and contents escaping

1. God

2. Lilacs in bloom

3. Seeds we started, putting the sprouts in the garden

4. Running water and long hoses

5. Making breakfast for Cassie (evidently Emily told her that she should get me to take her out to breakfast, and Cassie, bless her, told Emily it was even better not to leave the house.)

6. Taking Hannah and David to visit their grandmother at the library and give her birthday cards (that was Cassie’s idea)

7. Lettuce emerging. We haven’t had success planting it. Maybe this time.

8. Proud to know the names of flowers like Whitman asked “have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”

9. Julia Fehrenbacher: her openness, storytelling and art

“Art is always visionary. Art always disturbs present realities, however satisfactory they may seem to the rest of the world.” Ben Shahn in Selden Rodman, Conversations with Artists

1. God

2. My mother

3. On her birthday

4. And the best thing she told me when I was young, that she didn’t mind what sort of career I chose or made of my life because “I know I’ve raised a good person.”

5. She says the right thing,  and always interesting

6. Good judgment, doing the right thing

7. A house cleaner than one’s hand

8. And she makes the best pie and chocolate cake, for me, her little butterball ( I used to go through her little file box of recipes on index cards and say “Mom, how about this,” and she would.)

9. She’s an excellent reference librarian.  Years and years ago, I watched her in action and was able to say to my brother that our mother is really good what she does.  And well into her seventies she’s still goes in and works, at least once a month. (And yes, we “talk shop.” ;)

10. Books, books and more books – she’s read everything it would seem

11. If there is evidence that the longer one lives, the better one gets, my mother is it.

Happy Birthday and Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

And Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers

10.

1. God

2. Everything beautiful in its time

3. The state trooper who helped us when we stalled on the highway

4. A jug of water flavored with cucumber slices

5. Cassie getting together with her friends

6. Bright wings

7. Blooming azaleas

8. Rests

9. Discoveries through reading and seeing

“I tell you honestly I do not live in air.  I live in air filled with images, waiting, waiting. And they’re mad at me because I don’t make them.” – Jacques Lipchitz, in Selden Rodman, Conversations with Artists

1. God

2. Mothers

3. Children

4. May-mess

5. Hannah celebrating her birthday in day-glo paint

6. Dinner with David

7. Quiet house

8. Running water

9. Support

1.God

2.compost

(Who thought of that? Probably ancient agrarians)

3. A shovel

4.a blue hydrangea plant from Charlene

5. Richard doing the right thing

6. Cassie making lamb meatballs. She frequently cooks something different

7. Marco’s mobile pet grooming business, he says he has the best job in the world

8. Sense of wonder

9. The nines

1. God

2. Sight of blooming trees in the night sky

3. Energy

4. A fine statement of friendship (see the rest of this excellent board)

5. Mike Mensch comes to talk some sense into me

6. One thing leading to another

7. Andrea’s words about guidance

I’ve seen signs, some from which I’ve moved forward, others that have terrified me like the man who mistook the shadow of his equipage for blackbirds

8. Katrina’s words about writing, especially this:

“Writing demanded that I sit still and pay attention.  It required time, reflection and, most of all, a confrontation with my innermost self.  If I really wanted to inhabit my life, it seemed, then the best way to do it was to slow down enough to notice the details.  And then, by subtle alchemy, something inside shifted. As I began to shape words, the words I wrote began to shape me.  The more I saw, the more deeply I felt.  And slowly, day by day and word by word, the hunger for something that always seemed just out of reach was transformed into gratitude for what was right in front of me.”

9. _ _ _ _

1.God

2. Reprieve

3. Nurturing

4. Coaching

5. Sharing gratitude (yes, Crystal and Sally!!)

6. Getting through tight spaces (thinking of Jean G.)

7. Carol’s delight

8. Something about David. He was glad to see me and able to talk about what’s bothering him

9. Hannah following through

10. A girl wearing a sweatshirt that read “truth”