Grateful, January

• 23 days left
• that my mom doesn’t take it personally that I am counting the days
• all four children are “writing a book” (three on computers, one by drawing the pictures and dictating the text to me)

• a wedge salad with blue cheese dressing and bacon crumbles
• the medal SweetP earned in the US figure skating championships (can you see them skating on the TV in the background?)

• homemade bread

• new growth on SweetP’s rose-bush, now (supposedly) hibernating in the garage

• a big batch of spaghetti sauce my friend Wendy brought us
• gentian violet
• the library’s chess club, and the 30 minutes I had alone in the library during its meeting