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:

• My podcast is launched! Yay! Check it out at ACupofColdWater.com  and please subscribe for a nourishing bit of inspiration each week.  I’m grateful for the graphics and music for the podcast that was done by others. I’m grateful to my husband for teaching me how to use his recording software, and having the sound booth that makes it possible. I’m grateful his podcast encircles the globe with listeners practically everywhere.
• I’m really grateful my husband does the taxes and I don’t have to.
• I’m grateful for a nice quiet winter here, with visitors dropping through, and lots of good work and quiet time. Also grateful for travel to look forward to: Italy, Maine, North Carolina, Boston, Maine, Turkey, Sardinia, Maine again, and California. Grateful also for my travel to England and Morocco last year, which I am still savoring.
• I’m grateful we see our daughters as often as we do and that they are doing well; one is learning to ski, the other is reading and knitting a lot. I’m grateful our youngest loves the winter and has been enjoying her walk to work (snowy photo below).
• I’m grateful for healing work taking place in my Christian Science practice. I’m grateful to be able to do my work wherever I am so I am not tethered to a desk or a chair. I like being able to continue to work from refreshing and alternative vistas.
• I’m grateful too for our faithful local church and the loving atmosphere there. I’m grateful to conduct the service half the Sunday’s and represent our church in our town clergy association.
• I’m grateful for my art mentorship clients, and all the progress I get to encourage in them.
• I’m grateful for my office/studio and a dedicated place to work. I’m grateful for all the windows I have and the view I have from there (rooftop photo below). I’m grateful also for my “archive room” where I store my to-be-sold artwork.
• I’m grateful my husband and I play cribbage most evenings right after dinner. You can see some of our best hands recently below. I’m always grateful for being dealt a good hand, both literally and metaphorically.
• I’m grateful for the amazing new quilted artist journal our younger daughter made me for my birthday, and also for my generous art material gifts from my husband. It has been fun putting them to use.
• I’m grateful for my book groups and the wonderful people in them.
• I’m grateful for flowers in the house even in winter: orchids, amaryllis, and tulips on Valentine’s Day.
• I’m grateful for newly replenished gouache to take on my next trip.
• I’m grateful someone sent me that photo of myself taken 18  years ago with a snake.
• I’m grateful for every small business, and for decreasing shopping at big companies as much as possible. I’m grateful for Libro.fm where you can get audio books that support your local independent bookstore.
• I’m grateful for Sennelier’s new mixed media sanded paper, and Dakota Pastels’ plein air blocks made of sanded Pastel Primier paper.
• I’m grateful for sunsets, for my new long underwear, for new pants from Costco, for halibut when possible, for food made by others, for fires in our fireplace, for our new Moroccan rug, for my husband’s new hat made by a blog reader, for the fuzzy friends our family has (the alligator and mosquito pictured here), for evenings of golden sunlight shining all the way through the house lighting up our mother and child sculpture with an orchid-shaped shadow beside (see photo), for our juicer, for our water purifier, for tiny gift cards, for good memories, for health, persistence, joy, and for our future garden, that (oh yes!) spring is coming.
• I’m grateful for each and every one of you blog readers. This blog couldn’t happen without you reading it, sharing it, commenting on it, and supporting it. I really appreciate knowing you through this medium. I’m grateful each one of you is out there in the world amplifying good. Thank you for being so marvelous!

Put some of your own grace notes in the comments!