Today I am grateful for

1. Not waking up to the brassy condemnation of an alarm clock
2. (I know this may be tacky but) I am grateful not to dress like crazy princesses in wild hats.
3. My job
4. The warm reassurance of coffee
5. The warm reassurance of Ruby
6. My daughter’s fearless blog writing
7. Addressing her graduation announcements!
8. The realization of a shared dream
9. Navy Seals

 When you are describing,
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don’t state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things,
With a sort of mental squint.
~Lewis Carroll

Today I am relieved and grateful for~

1. Edit/Undo
2. Carol’s kind comment arriving just-in-time
3. Excitement
4. The courage of a friend to send a brutally honest email reminding me to protect myself
5. Unexpected gifts
6. Beautiful cards with the words “grateful” on them
7. God supplies
8. Synonyms
9. Somedays, you know, just getting through without falling apart

 To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted. ~George Kneller

I am grateful for what endures:

1. anticipation
2. alignment
3. my resistance to change
4. hope
5. practicing on a better serve
6. that summer vacation feeling~~just out of reach
7. love of licorice and jelly beans
8. the peace of sleep
9. God’s grace

When the world exclaims, “Give Up,” Hope whispers, “Try one more time”

1. Stepping stones toward an answered prayer
2. A prayer over the phone
3.  Grace when I flub up
4. A gift for our Hope Fund
5. Biopsy results for a friend are clear
6. Beautiful birches
7. That tears during the media wedding means my circumstances have not embittered me too much
8. A call from my dad
9. Cranberry walnut bread

Only Speak Words that Make Souls Stronger.  ~Ann Voskamp

on this Wednesday, I am grateful for:

1. morning smiles before coffee
2. cooler temperatures and less dust in the air
3. taking a risk and telling the truth, even after many decades, still…
4. a friend who caught me up on things at my alma mater
5. being asked
6. being understood
7. medicine: miracles held inside plastic bottles
8. relief
9. better breathing

In a world where everybody is out for himself, the winning strategy is to be forgiving. ~Martin Nowak

Today I am grateful:

1. The duct tape on the skylight means the fix has begun
2. the money will stretch until payday—-yay!
3. for a beautiful egg custard with gruyere
4. to watch Ruby and Grace reunite and  play
5. for an office visit from a friend
6. that I remembered a dream after waking
7. for a dress that now fits that didn’t use to
8. for Quiet and stillness after the storm
9. that God is ever-patient with me

       I am not an optimist, I am a prisoner of hope. ~Desmond Tutu

Today, post rainstorm, I am Grateful for:

1. Waking up to the day after the storm
2. Finding Mike-the-contractor on the roof first thing this morning, even though I did not call him
3. Knowing the roof, skylights, and chimney took the damage for us.
4. The realization that the stuff that is broken can be fixed
5. A friendly call of concern
6. the message of this little video
7.  Time for torn collages
8. Time for sponge painting
9. figuring out how to get true-type fonts installed on my blog

Forgiveness is love in its most noble form. ~Anonymous

Easter Gratitude for:

1. Quiet time
2. Lots of birds calling and singing
3. The power we live in
4. Much needed rain, an Easter gift!
5. storm warning systems
6. Rick at the Wailing Wall and the tiny prayers he carried
7. actually stopping this list to take cover from the first baseball-sized hail I have ever seen!
8. Amelia, who usually parks her car outside, is safe and away
9. How a storm can produce so much drama then quickly dissipate
10. a list that began with quiet time, interrupted with power, then completed in relief

Today I am grateful for

 1.      Yesterday’s Friday tennis!
 2.      Taking the time to really stretch before
 3.      Taking the time to eat breakfast before, not just grab a mango and hope for the best
 4.      Finding what seems like new furniture under mounds of clothes finally reunited with hangers
 5.      (no wire hangers!)
 6.      An afternoon nap—yes!
 7.      This picture of sharing and contentment 
 8.      blooming irises
 9.      learning to distinguish a dove’s call from an owl’s

Perspective can always adopt gratitude ~and gratitude always parents joy.  Ann Voskamp

1.      Rain falling so lightly I could see it but not hear it
2.      An anticipated day off
3.      Beth,  who replied quickly
4.      V’s stuffy-nosed call- so pathetic and funny at the same time-we are four+ decades-friends and we still call and complain when we are sick
5.      Really hot and delicious coffee
6.      “it’s Passion Week,” he said, and that explained it
7.      Communion service
8.      Beauty in The Sacrifice
9.      That it is ok and perhaps preferable that I don’t get it.

…Living things don’t all require
light in the same degree. Some of us
make our own light: a silver leaf
like a path no one can use, a shallow
lake of silver in the darkness under the great maples…  Lamium by Louise Glück