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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:

• Easter… that Jesus came and broke through the mesmerism in such a brilliant and memorable way. That his resurrection can also be our resurrection.
• for a lovely, festive holiday weekend at church, with friends and family, both in person, over the phone, and on zoom, and for all the love and congeniality with everybody, with a special gratitude call out to sisters and daughters, not to mention my great husband.
• that we can have people in our home again after such long sequestering during that pandemic.
• that we recently got to use my aunt’s china, my husband’s grandmother’s dessert dishes, and the tablecloth my Ukrainian landlady gave me. It is fun using our nice things.
• For our easy, delicious guest menu lifted directly from the blog: Broiled Parmesan Tilapia, Roasted Carrots with Tahini, Pistachios, and Mint, Roasted Asparagus, and salad, followed by Awesome Carrot Cake. I’m so grateful I decided to learn to cook and to include recipes on this blog. It adds another dimension of creativity, color, flavor, sharing, and expression of love to my life.
• that our older daughter got away by herself to a hiking and foodie vacation in the Grand Canyon. She works so hard for such long hours to benefit others, I was very glad she took some time to nurture her own soul. I was also touched that she chose to return to something she had done with me in her childhood. Additionally, I’m glad that later in the month she enjoyed her boyfriend’s brother’s wedding.
• that our younger daughter has successfully jumped through the difficult hoops of getting her PhD topic approved, and is now officially a “candidate.” I’m grateful for her temporary reprieve from that intense stress, and that she can get more life balance back into her days for a while. I’m grateful she was able to be home for “spring break,” and am glad she’ll be working from our home for part of the summer. I’m also grateful she likes to read; as a child she was the one of our kids who wasn’t a reader, and now she reads more than the others who were voracious readers early on. She’s read over fifty books so far this year, which is downright amazing considering what else she has been doing.
• that my husband has started his seeds for the garden, and he’s so fun about it, taking them out to the front step each day, talking to them and tending them in the corner of our living room. I’m grateful to be surrounded by living things and to be married to a nurturer.
• for healings in my spiritual practice, for new understanding, and for ongoing expanding awareness– answers are beautiful things!
• for food made by others, particularly my survey of restaurant salmon salads. It is nice to be back in restaurants again.
• for all of my book groups and the friendships they have fostered.
• for having gotten a cash award in a recent art show.
• for my New Year’s resolution to get more margin in my life.
• for experimenting with new mixed media combinations, and for jumpstarting my artist journaling practice, as well as beginning a fresh approach to a sketchbook.
• for a dear favorite tree, that I didn’t know until recently was cut down during the pandemic.
• for the friends I’ve made through art groups and pastel societies.
• for several art trips planned to Maine this year, one to visit an artist’s studio, one on a plein air painting retreat in June, and to teach a workshop in September. (I’m also with hoping to be accepted as an artist in residence on Long Lake again in August?)
• for my husband doing the dishes and the laundry.
• for crocus, forsythia, scilla, violets, hyacinths, tulips, daffodils, and emerging spring beauty. I’m grateful our garden is starting to bloom and our weeping cherry three is beginning it’s yearly display.
• for enough money to pay our taxes. I’m grateful for all the good things taxes pay for. I’m grateful our kids all did their own taxes by themselves this year, and even more grateful I do not do mine!
• for poems, mine and others; each one is a gift.
• for my husband’s podcast about the Bible, and that it is helping so many people, and makes his feel so alive reaching 133 countries. I’m grateful too that he’s been interviewed on so many other podcasts, and has opportunities to teach the Bible in other venues as well.
• for immense progress in my sister’s life, and that James got to visit there recently on his way to and from a conference.
• for spring peepers, and frogs of all sorts, including plushy ones.
• for a new, black, female, Supreme Court Justice, alleluia.
• for nutrients, sunshine, rain at night, birdsong, texture, silk, cashmere, blown glass, airplanes, zoom, computers, parks, trails, waves, buds, the amazing fresh green spring color of skunk cabbage and the way the sun shines through them, smiles, macadamia nuts, agility, charisma, quietude, for learning how to breathe, the peels on bananas, citrus, and avocados, rhymes, puns, doormats, sharp cheddar cheese, for roaring fires that knock of the chill of a spring rain, for never a shortage of ideas, for James edging the lawn, for what is either normal or exceptional, for palette knives, for varied reading, for good news, for transformation, authenticity, clarity, justice, for environmentalists, compost, recycling, solar power, catkins, magnolias, orchids, Bulgarian yogurt, reusable water bottles, vacuums, for vegetarian nachos, for new lipstick again after two years of not wearing it, for moving forward, for consideration, gentleness, joy…
• for each of you blog readers, the long-time ones, the faithful ones, the only occasional ones, the new ones, thank you, each and every one of you, for being here and sharing this Life with me. Thank you for supporting this blog with your attention, your comments, your sharing of it, and your financial support of it. You are deeply appreciated and I would not do it but for you. You are awesome and I’m so grateful we can be connected in this way.

Add some of your own grace notes in the comments!

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