It’s the first Friday of February, and so it’s time again to remember all the things I’ve had to be grateful for in the past month. I managed to list nearly 400 things since my last gratitude post, but I won’t include them all here. (Now you have something to be grateful for!)

Here are a few things I noticed that made my heart glad:

65. Raindrops on the window and dripping from the branches of the fig tree.

69. Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck, illustrated by Mark Buehner–such a lovely story, so beautifully illustrated.

72. Once more, my morning cup of tea–which Doug faithfully makes day after day.

83. The evergreens marching along the ridge in the distance.

104. Mighty-O donuts.

118. My kids are still sleeping, so I have time to journal.

139. Kleenex.

140. No day lasts forever. They always, mercifully, end.

166. Insomnia. It means I’m up and writing at 5:02.

177. The Seattle Public Library.

200. The way both my kids mispronounce “breakfast.” Jack: breckfixt. Jane: beckfitst.

226. The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle

249. I finished writing my week of meditations on the lectionary for the 2011 Disciplines.

263. The shiny gloss of the knobs on my bedposts.

285. Bacon with breakfast.

313. Stewed prunes don’t taste as disgusting as they look.

335. Reading Winnie-the-Pooh to the kids–the real ones by A.A. Milne, not the dumbed-down Disney version.

353. I felt well yesterday.

364. Bread hot from the oven. Mmmmm.

389. Cherry blossoms.

411. Jane held my hand the entire time I was reading her “Beauty and the Beast” (from Berlie Doherty’s Fairy Tales collection).

421. It’s been a tough, even heartbreaking, week, for reasons I don’t feel at liberty to disclose, but even in the midst of dark and difficult times, God is near. We just have to keep our eyes, and our hearts, open, so we can see when and where and how He cares for us.

As we move into a new month, may each of us see the abundance of gifts and blessings that are our lives.