Thanks in the bleak mid-winter

I've been reading Ann's book.  Have you?  It's really good, very insightful.  I think I'm going to order a few more copies this week to send to unsuspecting friends.  It's that kind of book.

It's early morning now and I felt very sad when my alarm went off 50 minutes ago.  Very bleak, on the verge of depressed.  
But we've talked about this before.

I've been keeping the list a bit more faithfully the last few days.  Been a bit more intentional with sitting down and really thinking of all the joys of the day.  I've even looked at the hard things and tried to find gratitude.


#1155 - 1185

* clouds floating golden toward the dawn
* kitchen knives all lined up on their magnet on the wall
* remembering mornings in the Dominican Rebpublic one year ago...warmth, the beach, the sounds...take me back!
* snow melting
* dishes clean and stacked
* imagining the sea at sunrise
* remembering that warm places do exist (I'm sensing a theme)
* son texting with his grandpa and his uncle
* technologically adept grandparents
* surprise satin pj pants from my mother-in-love
* wind from God - melt some of this snow!

* (trying to) make the budget work
* chasing Theo up the stairs and his giggling
* Theo remembering the sermon:  "Well, Pastor Jeremy DID say our biggest problem is ourselves."
* skin that heals quickly
* Psalm 34 v. 8  Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!
* sunlight dancing in my kitchen windows
* reminding me that is will not always be winter
* light and shadow
* tidying
* messiness that shows we really really live here.  I mean, we REALLY live here.
* handwriting - all kinds
* ink on paper
* notebooks
* lovely papers
* sand on ice so I don't SLIP!
* our neighbor who chipped the ice off our walkways so we don't have to SLIDE down the stairs
* good drummers
* playing the egg shaker AND the tambourine at church!
* legs and joints that can do all these stairs - we've got a lot of them.
* sculptural piles of gray and black snow - weird, very weird