50. Fifty things about this day

Today was an ordinary, average, routine day.

I was going to throw "unremarkable" in there, but I don't believe any day is unremarkable. Today also happens to be day 50 in this do-a-thing-every-day-for-a-year experiment. So I made a list of 50 things I was grateful for through the course of this ordinary day.

1.  The cat curling up with me when ordinarily she'd insist it was time for breakfast.
2. Tea.

3. Scrivener.
4. The sun's light breaking through the heavy gray for a few moments.
5. Antiphonal "good morning" texts.
6. Umbrellas. 

7. News of (and a call for entries in and judges for) the newsroom's third annual Pie Contest.
8. The coworker who keeps a hair dryer here, so I could dry out and warm up the cold wet part of my sweatshirt that the umbrella didn't cover.
9. The comforts of a sweatshirt with a shawl collar and a kangaroo pocket.
10. The added warmth of remembering it was a gift from my stepmother and late father.
11. Working at a place where it's fine to wear jeans and a sweatshirt to work. 

12. The coworker who keeps a hot pot on her desk and always either has hot water ready or is ready to fire it up when I want tea. 

13. The editor who keeps a giant bowl stocked with peppermints. 

14. The letters-to-the-editor-page wrangler who keeps a dispenser stocked with M&Ms and herself stocked with mirth. 

15. Reporter Cathy Frye's words, 

16. Rick McFarland's photos, and

17. our online designers' skills in packaging our paper's weeklong series telling the story of how Cathy and Rick were lost and found in the Texas desert last year. 

18. An anniversary of gladness that they were found. 

19. The gratitude that she exudes because of that.

20. Gluten-free nut thins (especially pecan).
21. Butternut squash soup.
22. The way butternut squash soup reminds me of the vacation in Ireland.
23. Unannounced pie at work, and whoever brought it.
24. The Firewheel Studio stoneware bowl I keep at work, which adds a touch of hospitality to meals eaten at a desk.
25. Whatever medium it was back in the pre-email, pre-Internet early 1980s that let me know about Firewheel Studio's seconds sale when I bought this bowl and a larger fruit bowl on a grad student's stipend.
26. Finally going without a Band-Aid on my toe after a little thing took weeks to heal.
27. The way irritants in areas that usually draw no attention to themselves — an itch between toes, an unease in the gut — quietly but persistently point out where something is wrong and needs attending.
28. The example of people who bear, with grace and without complaint, all kinds of chronic health issues and infirmities.

29. The zinnias in a bricked flower bed outside the newspaper office, and the maintenance guy who sowed those seeds a few years ago. 

30. The walk a few blocks from the office to my car, a physical enacting of the transition from the workday to the rest of the day. 

31. Real bookstores. 

32. Walking into one and finding a book just published by someone I know, and taking a picture and posting it on Facebook and alerting the author: "Look! A sighting in the wild!"
33. Having a few bucks in my pocket to buy that book (today, Barbara Mahany's Slowing Time) and take it home. 

34. The memory of meeting Barbara at a table in Michigan last spring.
35. Memory itself.
36. My reliable car, going strong after 12 years and 171,000 miles. 

37. My home, which always feels so snug and cozy on a rainy day. 

38. Stuff in the cupboard and fridge to make dinner with. 

39. Onions, and the pleasures of chopping them, and the smell of them cooking, and everything Robert Farrar Capon had to say about that. 

40. The Revere Ware two-quart saucepan my grandmother gave me when I was moving into my first apartment 30 years ago, still cooking things up after all these years. 

41. Wooden spoons. 

42. This bowl of chili macaroni.
43. The contemplative practice of washing dishes by hand, and the feeling of tidiness after.

44. A phone call from my favorite young person, who sometimes even asks my advice.

45. An email from someone I didn't get to meet this weekend, but we will, one day. 

46. The good aspects of Facebook, like the group that allows folks who just spent a glorious weekend together to stay in touch and makes re-entry a little less jarring. 

47. CD players and iTunes and such in general, and in particular, tonight's music, Andrew Peterson's Counting Stars. And the banjo. 

48. Things that make me laugh out loud. Like a little girl's drawing of a My Little Pony holding a plunger and titled, "Toilet Sparkle." 

49. People who are unabashed in saying, "I love you." 

50. People who are unabashed in hearing I love them.

And you know what? I could go on. 

Sometimes in my nightly gratitude lists I worry that it sounds like "look at my awesome life." That's never my intent. My goal here is simply to say, together, "Let us look at our days and give thanks." Even the simplest, grayest, most ordinary are full of dropped seeds grown into bloom, worth picking and beholding and being thankful for. Five things, every day.

Tell me. What are you grateful for today?