I am grateful to be able to do laundry - I never look forward to it, but I'm grateful to be able to clean my clothes, and that I have clothes - 

I am grateful for a salad for lunch - 

The fascination of any search after truth lies not in the attainment, which at best is found to be very relative, but in the pursuit, where all the powers of the mind and character are brought into play and are absorbed by the task. 

One feels oneself in contact with something that is infinite and one finds joy that is beyond expression in sounding the abyss of science and the secrets of the infinite mind.

~ Florence Bascom

I am grateful for intriguing little surprises 

and visual delights -

I am grateful for light - 



The small group which met in silence to “wait upon the Lord” was the dynamo which generated light and power in the Quaker movement.

Like a dynamo, this generator drew on Power beyond itself.

~ from Friends for 300 Years, by Howard H. Brinton

I am grateful for each day's events - 

the unexpected and the routine . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

. . . I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

. . . Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

. . . When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

. . . No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

~ Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Photographs can't do justice to how beautiful yesterday was: the greens, the sunlight, the cool breezes -

I am grateful for a beautiful afternoon in Glen Helen -

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

~ Meister Eckhart

I am grateful to be able to bring home groceries -

The hinges of the old toilet seat broke, and I am grateful to get a new one -

I am grateful for awareness. . . .

Awareness requires a rupture with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience are called into question and revised. 
~ Shoshana Zuboff

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all. 
~William Faulkner

We're grateful to have toilet paper - 

I am grateful to have a refrigerator - 

It's that time of year - summer - when it's great to have ice cream bars in the freezer -
I am grateful when I have ice cream in the freezer -

I normally don't keep candy in the house, but sometimes Peanut M&Ms are a treat -

I am grateful for Peanut M&Ms -

I am grateful for people of compassion and generosity.

I am grateful for a delicious Red Velvet Cupcake from Queen City Cookies!

Queen City Cookies website

Queen City Cookies Facebook Page

On Friday I bought a ticket for the big Powerball drawing, and I didn't win - anything at all!

This will work out even better!

I'm not sure I'm ready to be a millionaire . . . yet . . .

And getting a lot of money isn't necessarily the solution to problems - sometimes it can create even more:

How One Lottery Winner Blew Through $10 Million in Less Than 10 Years

What Could Happen to You: Tales of Big Lottery Winners

The Tragic Stories of the Lottery’s Unluckiest Winners

19 Lottery Winners Who Blew It AllI am grateful for the money - and everything else - that I have - 

I am grateful for rain, even when it's inconvenient . . . .

It's a beautiful day

Sky falls, you feel like

It's a beautiful day

Don't let it get away

~ U2

I am grateful for a beautiful day -

In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.

~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I am grateful for curry with rice - 

I'm not a fan of most "gadgets", but I am grateful for a little tool I use often when washing dishes - the pan scraper - it's cheap and so useful - 

I am grateful for raindrops on tulips - 

Bread feeds the body, indeed, but flowers feed also the soul.

~ The Koran

When eating bamboo sprouts, 

remember the person who planted them. 

~Chinese Proverb

I am grateful for quiche -

I am grateful for Mani & her Mami -

I am grateful for clean drinking water.

I am grateful for electricity - for lights, refrigeration, computers, television, music players, and more . . . 

I am grateful when we all get along . . . 

We are grateful for our neighbors the squirrels - they are so entertaining to watch -

I am grateful for memories

I am grateful for rain

A Friend and I walked in the woods, in the rain, practicing photography as praise -

I am grateful for the birds and their songs - 

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
~ e. e. cummings

I am grateful for a frozen mocha on the patio at Panera -

I am grateful for a coupon from Kroger for a free pizza -

I am grateful to have gotten a copy of the "Lincoln" film at the library this weekend -

I am grateful that Cabooki seems to be doing a little better . . .

I am grateful for chocolate-covered strawberries - and even more, for the friend who made them!

 I am grateful for light in darkness.

I am grateful for choices - 

I am grateful for all the flowers I see as I walk around -