try the new blogger! (scenes from a magazine)

Today I am grateful for a grass cutting, an advisory committee, a cup of coffee, then some more, and the day we said it was over.

heavy duty

Today I am grateful for typefaces, fonts, photos, captions, feedback, coffee, plenty of food and a nap.

everybody can't depend on everyone

There are people you can't depend on. It doesn't mean that they are undependable people. Some people can depend on them. It's just you can't. It doesn't matter. You got the information you needed. You just can't depend on some people.


Today I am grateful for writers and creators who teach me to be someone they can depend on.
I am grateful for how their words fill pages.

choice one

Gone to work on a Monday when frantic could very well be the theme but I'm choosing to act on the important,  not the urgent.

Because someone is always making me read.


Today I am grateful for a book, for an email system, for a meeting and a magazine.

Saturday Night Fever less John Travolta

We float on our backs and count the bats and they attack and she busts her lip and there is a reenactment but we don't ask because one or two may start laughing.

Today I am grateful for work and play.

Jemba sent us this.

Thank you for the music.

no pressure

Three thousand give or take a few, but I don't have to print them or box them or stack them or ship them. No throwing my back out on this one.

Today I am grateful for fifteen miles and a heavy pack.

in response, nice

Today I am grateful that someone mentioned the Como Opera Guild - that I got to see their faces because even in all this fighting and dying and upside down don't understand world there are children building.


Thank you.

pace

It was the last Friday of the summer.
Of course there would be pacing.


Today I am grateful for a concrete floor and plenty of work.

choose

Breathe in the dust in the air in the hole I am in.
Then do it.
Pull that right shoulder forward and left.
Breathe.  
Now back and down.
Arch up.
Pop.
Breathe.
Move.



Today I am grateful for people and design and verbs.

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Jemba sent a playlist of all the perfect songs.
She called it Easy Like Sunday Morning, and it was particularly good on a Monday night.


Today I am grateful for salmon, shrimp, grouper, chicken thighs and Jemba's music.

get to work early

Today I am grateful for a deadline and a continued conversation.

song

3 calls, 3 swims

I go for a drive just to talk to you.

Today I am grateful to have music with my swim.

the shade

Today I am grateful for a walk with a friend, sous vide chicken with large lima beans, celery, red, green and yellow peppers and a new pair of glasses. Water, of course, but coffee, too.

whisper

those words which slip make me not so and I get it,
but

nothing.



Today I am grateful for the quiet.

rolling thunder

When the power went down and I'd been without internet for over a week, I shouted at mama across the yard onto the porch because shouldn't it all go down that way?

"Mama! Is this it? The end of times?"

"No, Shea. A tree fell across a power line."



Today I am grateful for perspective.



And internet. I do hereby claim AT&T as my new love.
And YouTube.
And Kobe Bryant.
And the rain that fell that day.

write

Today I am grateful for mama's biscuits,
those moments with daddy on the road
and the stories he still tells today.

good garden of peppers!

Love in the time of COVID

She’s got a little, but we all do. 

That Melba Jane, she does not like Ruby. 

And Ruby will fight.

Until Miss Eula walks in.

Today I am grateful for reading, swimming and homemade hot pepper relish.


And him.

new word alert

Goya

We collectively receive a package containing a card and a book. Once we send it through the decontamination machine and give up on the hope of not killing everyone and everything - we rip it open before reading the first chapter and sauntering around the couch.

Today I am grateful for a package, a card and a book.

Jemba has playlists and reading lists.

Sweep, An Essay on the Back Porch

Today I am grateful for a good broom.

time and space

Today I am grateful to be part of a team.

off grid, on grid

Today I am grateful for phone calls, a note, a visit, conversations, a purpose, a plan, emails, documents, quotes, tweets, posts, blueberries and an old VHS player that used to be in his room.

And Jemba's birthday song. She says, "Dance, girls."

the best out of a zillion

The girls are mad at me. The ocean has my seeing glasses. And of course the dang pier shook but as usual I'm still learning.


Today I am grateful for the opportunity to make this place beautiful for the next people.

our druthers

Once a year I try to remember what I learn once a year.

"Everyone has to freeze and nothing can happen with the camera. Everything else has to be completely still. All manual. I'm going to try and do what Joe says."

Tadpole spends about forty-five minutes listening, advising, freezing until she finally says, "I going to bed."



Today I am grateful for another morning, another try and tan lines.


Yes, tan lines.

9 miles

be fearless, we say

They beat me back to the apartment,
they call it.
We make it to the sandbar and call saltwater,
"Whale poop,"
so as not to be encouraged to swallow it.
They love the ocean and fearlessly take on the water.


Today I am grateful for a morning walk.

cure

We were just talking about the beach that morning when you said, "I loved it."
You were curled up in the corner of the large dark room. "It rained."
"I know. Right. Beach rains are a quick relief."
"Yes," you answered.



Today I am grateful for vials of medication which when given in massive doses become a cure.

paradise

It's the puppies, two new ones in a pin past Snowman's old den. The littlest one, she loves puppies and grown dogs and turkeys and chickens and roosters.

Today I am grateful for a little farm that I don't even have to work, for a squash recipe and for a visit with amazing people.

Jemba sent this.


If I die today, somebody tell mama I was happy.
Nevermind.
She knows.