This is a periodic blog feature I call “grace notes.” It occasionally captures my jottings of incidental gratitude. 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.

So now I am furthering my ongoing goal of appreciating such a continuous, overflowing abundance of random good. I’ve taken photographs of some of them with my iPhone, which you can see in this post.

So let’s start this gratitude list with:

• That our two daughters and the oldest one’s boyfriend are coming to work from here for three weeks over the holidays. It has been a long time since we’ve had a houseful, and it will be especially interesting with all of us working, including two working on west coast time! We are all really looking forward to being together. I’m so grateful they want to spend so much time with us. Additionally, due to the pandemic, our oldest daughter has not been home for two years, and her boyfriend has never been here, which makes us appreciate it all the more.
• I’m grateful for my two recent one woman art shows, especially my huge one in November and for all of you that came out to see it. Your enthusiasm and hearty appreciation of my artwork is appreciated, especially since it feels like I’m hanging myself out there on the walls. I was delighted to meet a woman who saw a one woman show of mine six years ago in Southington, and reached out to me on Facebook at that time to say how much she liked it. We then became friends on Facebook, and six years later she made the long trek to see this show and meet me. You can see us pictured together below; we got on very well (as I’m sure I would with each you!). She was not the only one who traveled quite a distance to see the show; I appreciate all you who did. People saw it from Germany, Vermont, Brooklyn, Westchester County New York, from all along the Connecticut shoreline, as well as lots of locals. I’m grateful too to my miracle of a husband, who cheerfully framed 77 works, and for the Meetinghouse and the Winery for the opportunities to show my paintings. Frankly, I’m also grateful to be on the other side of all this excitement!
• I’m still grateful for the new paint job on our house, and have been loving how sharp and pronounced the shadows now look against it. I’m loving too the bridge moment of the season, when our pumpkins are still happily gracing our step, and the new wreath James’ sister sent us is already gracing the door.
• I’m grateful to be going through some boxes at long last, as we try to make room for all our company at Christmastime. It feels good to process stuff that has been languishing.
• I’m grateful for the Farmer’s market, which is still going on every week through Christmas. I’m grateful to be able to buy local fresh produce. I’m grateful too for food prepared by others, whether it is salmon on a poached pear salad on a date night, or salmon with rice and lentils prepared by a friend at a dinner party.
• I’m grateful for friends. You can see us below out to eat on Halloween with dry ice fizzing in our water, and James gesticulating as he makes a theological point to another. It was great to have a former Sunday School student visit with her son while she was home for Thanksgiving. I’m grateful a friend of ours is storing a large bunch of my paintings for us in her guest room over the holidays so our daughter’s boyfriend will have a way to fit into our home over Christmas.
• I’m grateful for family too. I’m so glad we were able to go to our niece’s wedding in October in Louisiana, and that everything related to that worked out so perfectly. It was such a nice occasion! I’m grateful my sisters are doing so well and that we are in touch often. I’m grateful James and I have got all our Christmas presents already mailed; I think it is a first for us to have done that so early.
• I’m grateful my husband’s gracious podcast about the Bible is going out and blessing folks now in 127 countries around the globe.
• I’m grateful for our sweet town, for my four book groups, for popcorn (whether made by me or Skinny Pop), for airplanes that bring  loved ones together, for Facetime and phones that virtually do the same, for having flowers in the house, for the November view out my office window (see photo above), for our solar panels, for poems, for the internet, for homemade applesauce made by my husband and the great Squeezo that makes it easy to do, for clouds that catch the light from the setting sun, for pandemic babies I already love but haven’t met yet, for my husband’s garden that is now put to bed (that last photo shows our last dahlias of the year), for sewing machines, for truthful people, for parks, Netflix, shampoo, glasses, purple cauliflower, purple peppers, and red boiled wool clogs.
• I’m grateful for every one of you blog readers. Thank you for reading these posts, sharing this heartfelt corner of the internet with your family and friends, and for financially supporting this site as well. Thank you for your presence, your time, your patience and kindness, and your responses. I am so very grateful to have each of you along on this journey, which is made all that much better by being together.

Put some of your grace notes in the comments!