Daily Dose of Gratitude #66

1. The smell of tomato plants and marigolds.

2. A fresh washed bedspread, dried in the sun (the cat is grateful for this, too!)

3. Working from home. (Please don't ask me what time I changed out of my PJs this morning. I'd rather not confess to that little gem :-)

4. Strong legs and gorgeous scenery -- Had an absolutely lovely 9 mile bike ride in Tiburon followed by a 4 mile run in the Berkeley hills last night. Views of the sun setting in San Francisco, so very grateful that I was out in the open air rather than stuck in one of the thousands of cars I could see crawling across the Bay Bridge.

5. Wonderful, amazing, happy friends (new and old)

Daily Dose of Gratitude #65

1. Swimming a mile straight, no stopping. The longest I've ever done.

2. A new handmade dress (terrible pic -- sorry! I promise it's adorable, though :-)

3. Fizzy pink drinks. (This pic is actually from February, when all I wanted to do for my birthday was to drink something pink and fizzy and play skee-ball. Skee-ball didn't happen, but I did get my pink and fizzy. Must get back up to wine country soon!)

4. Trivia night victory. Free beer, yeah!

5. The kind of incredibly satisfying kind of tired you feel only after a really amazing workout.

Daily Dose of Gratitude #64

1. An abundance of my favorite flowers at the farmer's market (and cheap, too!)

I am utterly charmed, by the way, by the misspelled sign.

2. Hiking with a good friend and seeing her old-school happy after several very tough months:

3. Starry night, wonderful conversation, live bluegrass in the background.

4. Dogs riding shotgun, tongues lolling, ears flapping back in the wind.

5. Yellow shoes.

Daily Dose of Gratitude

1. Tide low enough on my way across the bridge in the morning that I can see seals sunning themselves on shelves of exposed rock.

2. An awesome after work swim with women from my triathlon team. The longest I've ever swum in one work-out, in fact (nearly a mile and a half!)

3. And realizing that I'm strong enough right now to do a triathlon, even though I've still got 6 weeks before my scheduled race.

(Is there anyone who doesn't look a little silly in neoprene?)

4. The fact that I work out with a bunch of women who are impressed rather than horrified by the truly fabulous bruise I gave myself on Saturday, when I had a, shall we say, "unplanned exit" from my bike. (Sorry, no picture. My mom reads this blog, and I fear if she saw the bruise, she'd come out to California and let all the air out of my bike tires to keep me from ever getting on the confounded machine again.) (Love you, Mom!)

5. A chicken gyro with extra tzatziki sauce.

6. $3 bunches of brilliantly orange farmer's market ranunculus brightening my bedroom.

(An aside -- I just googled ranunculus to make sure I was spelling it right and learned that the gorgeous, ruffly ranunculuses (ranunculi?) that I get at the farmer's market are a type of buttercup. I had no idea - they look so different! )