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:

• Our younger daughter successfully navigating her way to get her PhD in Physics, together with getting a great professor job to start in the fall. We felt such triumphant jubilation on graduation weekend and are so grateful too that our older daughter came from California for the event (if you missed it photos here and here). I’m grateful to be able to accompany our younger daughter as she found a tiny apartment within walking distance to her new job. It is great to have her home right now to play bananagrams with (which initially taught her to spell, and now, see above: lamentations, quiveringly?). I’m grateful she’s learning to drive, and will soon get a car. Then she can come home without me going to pick her up. I’m grateful too that we’ve been hiking in some new places lately.
• I’m grateful I finally got my new art website done after working on it for a year and a half. What a relief! You can check it out here.
• I’m grateful to have a painting accepted into IAPS, the top international show for pastellists. We’ve mailed my painting to Albuquerque and it has been received. I have friends going, but I will not be, since I’ll be in Maine then. I’m grateful this is my third painting to get in; after getting five paintings in I will be honored as a “Master Pastellist,” which is a bucket list thing for me. I’m grateful to have goals I’m making progress on.
• I’m grateful our older daughter precipitated an apple watch on my wrist. “Just try it,” she wheedled, and “take it back if you don’t like it.” She knew more than me how much I needed it. I’m grateful for all that it can do and that I don’t have to be constantly holding my phone.
• I am grateful to care for these two daughters and husband, but am grateful too for all their care of me.
• I’m grateful for the spring and every green leaf, but especially the riot of color in my husband’s garden. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the peonies, iris, and the lilac bushes, which our kids gave me for Mother’s Day one year when they were small. All are thriving and the lilacs just got thinned.
• I’m grateful for new quince bushes, new blue hydrangea, and a peach colored rhododendron that we just got for our front corner, where a vole took out our dogwood tree and those large strawberry blush hydrangea we had, turning them into dead sticks. This will be our third iteration of things there after hurricane Sandy took out the original pine trees. I’m grateful we are getting closer to what we actually want there, and that the raspberries are getting moved to a larger bed. I’m grateful for all the work my husband does on all of the above, and that he thinks he’s removed the vole too.
• I’m grateful for our recent trip to Alexandria and DC. It was good to see my husband’s sister and husband, getting a glimpse of their life, as well as seeing a friend from camp, who we got to spend a couple days with. We packed a lot in, which you saw on the blog!
• Speaking of Creative arts Camp, I’m grateful to be teaching a collage class there this August, and some of you blog readers are in the class along with some folks I have yet to meet. I’m grateful we’ll be in a space right on the lake and it’ll be so fun.
• I’m grateful to be going to Boston for our church’s Annual meeting, and going to Maine to PSME’s annual Plein Air Retreat, an event I’m cooking for as well as painting in. I’m grateful in between to squeeze in driving our daughter’s moving truck, and keep working in my healing practice all the while!
• I’m grateful for all the help people feel from my prayerful work, and for all the letters and notes I get of lives transformed. It is truly satisfying. I am grateful for the writings of Mary Baker Eddy which changed my life and so many others for the better.  It put me on a healing path, and I’m grateful to have been able to pay this forward.
• I’m grateful for our little church too, where I lead services part-time and am Chairman of the Board. What a wonderful church family we have and I’m grateful to love them all. Two are shown in the photo below.
• I’m grateful for all the food made by others, which I have photos of in this post. This includes restaurant food, take out Thai soup that I added shrimp to at home, and that favorite almond croissant with raisins made by Ovens of France. I’m grateful for Community Shellfish, Costco and Trader Joes, Caraluzzi’s, and our new Bethel Organics, without whom my own food would not be. I’m grateful our local farmer’s market will be a weekly visit again soon. I’m grateful our younger daughter’s new apartment is right next to a terrific inn (where we’ll stay the night of moving her in) but mostly am grateful they have a great restaurant steps away from her new front door.
• I’m grateful for our younger daughter’s camp cot that I slept on when going to find her an apartment, and for being woken by a crocodile, a manatee, and a  hippo; it was so wonderful. I’m grateful we weeded out our linen drawer, and now have only in the cloth napkins in there that we use. I’m grateful for a place to donate the rest! I’m grateful my sister finally got a new car which has long been needed. I’m grateful for our extended family everywhere, and that they keep the photos coming; those babies grow up fast! I’m grateful my husband and I play cribbage most nights, when it is just the two of us. Great hands like the one shown below are always a cause of rejoicing!
• I’m grateful for sunsets, flowering trees, wheels, door hinges, books, fountain pens, water jugs in the refrigerator, phone apps that do whatever you need, pastels, friendly Canada geese, picnic tables, maps, journals, airplanes, passports, naps, hiking boots, moss, stain remover, interesting shadows to photograph, and songbirds in the morning.
• I’m grateful for each of you blog readers for making this colorful corner of the internet possible. Thank you for reading, subscribing, sharing, and financially supporting it. Thank you for being the change you want to see in the world, and amplifying good in your own arenas, until we encircle the globe with love and gratitude. You are the best. Thank you.

Put your own grace notes in the comments!