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.

It’s been a while! Let’s start this gratitude list with:

• a wonderful late spring full of flowers, friends, family, and good food!
• that my painting got into the IAPS 2026 Pastel World Show and I became a “master pastellist.”
• that I got to go to the PSME Plein Air Retreat with friends and that cooking for them went well. Also that the weather cooperated for our outdoor painting.
• that our daughter finished her teaching term strong and then visited here for two weeks. That my husband got to visit our other daughter in California on the way to his retreat in Idaho. What a blessing both of these daughters are to us!
• for seeing friends at Annual Meeting and catching up with their news.
• that I’ve painted a bunch in oil recently, and have had some new revelations about how I want to plein air paint less representationally, while still taking information from the landscape. (maybe I should blog about that?)
• that I’m in a group show in Rockland with the friends I paint with each fall on Monhegan.
• that I’m in two back to back shows in Guilford, both first time shows for me.
• for the amazing parade of flowers in our yard and for all the knowledge and time my husband spends to make that happen. From lilacs and azaleas, through irises, poppies, roses, and peonies, and now on to the hydrangeas and lilies, it is all wonderful and deeply appreciated by me.
• I’m grateful for our picnic table (yay no robins nesting there this year) and for eating out on our refurbished side porch (more comfortably that before). I’m grateful that the other chair we’ve used out there is getting new leather and will be home soon so that project will be complete.
• for all the food made by others shown in the photos here.
• for playing cribbage with my husband after dinner each night, and for playing bananagrams with our daughter.
• for our daughter’s enthusiasm over her journals, her sewing projects, even buying her new sleeping bag. Her energy is wonderful to be around.  I’m grateful she’s planning a remote camping trip with me in late July, where she’s planning (and cooking) the food, packing, and even driving. There will be no cell service and it will be a true vacation for me.
• I’m grateful I’ve not missed a day “getting my steps in” since April and have started lifting weights to train for my trip to the Himalayas this fall with our older daughter. I’m grateful we bought tickets through Singapore instead of the middle east.
• I’m grateful for books: my own, library ones, and audio ones too. They are such good companions– fun, informative, supportive.  I’ve been contemplating my motives for reading so much; they are varied and valid, and go beyond entertainment, even though that can be important too.
• I’m grateful that people are still requesting the free copies of Science and Health that I offer in the footer of this blog. It is a delight to give someone a book that can transform their thinking.
• I’m grateful to still be expanding my art practice through taking classes, and that I’m discerning about which ones are worth taking and why. I’m looking forward to exploring luminance at a class in July, even though I’ll utilize it as a contrast rather than the main event as the teacher does. I’m grateful I can take instruction, then make it my own. I do this in cooking to my benefit too. I’m grateful I riff on a recipe instead of slavishly following it.
• I’m grateful I learned to cook. I do it a lot now and what used to feel more like work is just like breathing.
• I’m grateful a bunch of my husband’s family will be visiting in late August, interestingly at the time I decided I wouldn’t be at camp this year. It will be good to see everyone again and get to love all over them.
• I’m grateful for our quarry swimming hole, and that I’ll start going this week, since it is going to start to get hot. It has been a summer sanctuary for me over many years, and last summer I barely got there, so this summer it feels especially sweet.
• I’m grateful to be able to help people through my Christian Science practice. I’m grateful that struggling people find a safe, compassionate ear in me, as well as some solid, practical answers. It feels good to be there for others in this way, and I’m grateful they appreciate it.
• I’m grateful that my husband does the laundry and the dishes, the lawn mowing and the taxes. I’m super grateful he’s been adding bread making to that big list! Are acts of service my love language? He does a great job of it.
• I’m grateful his podcast (The Bible Speaks to You) is still doing well and that he gets so much fulfillment from it. I’m grateful his prison ministry is going gangbusters as well.
• I’m grateful my five minute weekly podcast (A Cup of Cold Water) already has 76 episodes! Wow, that happened quickly! I’m grateful for every subscriber to the podcast.
• I’m grateful for my new chair and my new lapis necklace that we scored from Brimfield, and for new waterproof sneakers to walk in.
• I’m grateful my term as the president of the Ridgefield Clergy Association and been harmonious and undemanding.
• I’m grateful for chocolate ice cream with chocolate chunks, for the vase I made for our lilacs, for bakeries, for my journals and fountain pens, for sunsets on neighborhood walks, for interesting beadwork at art fairs, for fabric shopping with our daughter, for her “fuzzy friends” that we have fun with and who are so cozy, for good abstract art anywhere I spot it, for wild turkeys, for fabulous orange retro BMWs, for salmon jerky, for discovering steelhead trout (yum!), for the best roommate at PSME events, for orchids, for amazing lobster rolls, for eggplant burrata pizza, for my computer, for my office/studio which is my nest (photo above), for artists and spiritual people everywhere, for not scrolling on my phone, for discovery, contemplation, beauty, restitution, integrity, and unmitigated joy.
• I’m grateful for you dear blog readers. You make my day every time I hear from you. I’m grateful my life force isn’t going out into the ether, but finding lodgment in your eyes and hearts. Thank you for reading this blog, subscribing to it, sharing it, and maybe even supporting it financially. Together we make this happen, and I’m so grateful you find some good in it. I’m grateful to be amplifying good in the world with you.

Share your own grace notes in the comments!