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As a newer periodic blog feature, “grace notes” occasionally captures my jottings of incidental gratitude for sacramental moments in the shards of daily life. My hope is that this practice will make me (and you?) more aware of the constant flow of amazing good we are perpetually steeped in, which we are surrounded by all the time. It is here only asking to be noticed and amplified. See how all of life is poetry?

So now I am furthering my ongoing goal of appreciating such a continuous, overflowing abundance of random good. I’ve even taken photographs of some of them –mostly with my iPhone–as shown in this post. My list continues with:

• a stream of early evening light spotlighting one of our prayer chairs
•  well researched historical fiction that really brings a previous time and place into clearer view
• the full moon reflected in a large puddle in the baseball diamond
• new blog subscribers
• the round soft cheek of a one-year-old asleep on your shoulder
• new occasions teach new duties
• a raspberry filled bakery cookie
• humidity free days
• overflowing reservoirs
• early evening walks
• clean hearts
• dramatically lit skies
• strong shower heads
• family photos well preserved
• free information
• continous loops
• driving in and out of pelting rain, from awash in water to dry pavement and back again
• crunchy battered french fries
• making a baby’s clay footprint
• being #244th in line at 8am on a Saturday–an hour before the library booksale’s door opens
• buying inexpensive gently used books at a fundraiser book sale that has 120,000 books on offer– love for both the books and the people
• walking on the track talking with my sister about the details of my niece’s wedding plans
• getting wedding flowers at a big discount at Costco
• happy pooches getting admired and petted
• a satisfying cribbage hand
• God as the source of all movement
• homegrown lettuce
• open mic night
• mercy
• making muffins on a Friday night for a Saturday morning group
• my husband matching the church flowers while we eat our food truck lunch
• donating boxes of books on spirituality and metaphysical healing that I’m done with because I’ve found and am keeping the best one: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
• skypping with our youngest daughter from her job at the huge radio telescope in the back woods of West Virginia and mostly talking about cooking and beadwork and how shoes are made
• talking our oldest daughter down the road (via phone) on a leg of her road trip, and hearing about her friend hopping vacation
• expectation speeding our progress
• amazing tans on smooth legs
• infinity bath tubs
• trying food we’ve never heard of
• late evening light on a tree branch
• perspectives and vanishing points on streets of old world charm
• bluish purple shadows
• encouraging others
• young kids out for an evening of track in fluorescent orange shirts running willy nilly, then sitting, then repeating
• red white and blue sail boats poised and ready for the holiday
• first BLT of the season
• good is your protection
• purpose is single hearted authenticity
• submergence in Spirit
• learning something new
• mint
• concessions
• radical truth
• blushing brides
• triumph after hard work
• flowing rivers
• reflections in city buildings
• blotting out my transgressions
• uniqueness
• the transforming power of the Christ
• square dancing
• mountain mist
• prisms
• prophesy
• resting in a hammock
• quick healings
• CD players
• Pandora
• authority on the side of good
• winding roads up and around, over, under, and through
• airplanes that are on time
• grape hyacinths like little fragrant soldiers carpeting purple
• ah, clean body in clean sheets
• baby arugula grown right out my front door
• the effort and earnestness that teachers put out
• feeling approved
• grass fed butter made into ghee
• reasoning together
• submergence in Spirit, humbling and enriching
• strength and vitality undiminished
• big bag of ripe cherries
• an amazing watermelon cooler, wow
• hydrangea like exploding fireworks
• our daughter giving a poster session about determining the rotational direction of the Milky Way from the frequency of atomic hydrogen gathered with a radio telescope
• our other daughter giving an alumni talk as a successful career woman back at her master’s program three years after graduating
• solicitous policemen
• hugs from kind strangers
• piano concerts
• purity shown forth
• beaches full of shells
• insurance
• millet crackers
• no blind spots in omniscience
• our grandniece turning one
• 30 shades of spring green
• rusty blue truck full of plants
• forgiveness
• mosaic subway tile art
• renewal
• having two one woman shows this year
• selling a painting to a blog reader in Boston
• over hearing people discussing at length the meaning of my artwork at a show opening
• watching snapchats at the end of the day
• originated spiritually, not from an egg
• being interviewed for the Connecticut Pastel Society newsletter
• drinking enough water
• good people everywhere

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