My friend and classmate Katie MacLennan writes a great blog called Polka Dot Soup. On it she writes a post some Mondays called “Multitude Monday.” She writes, “Mondays are about documenting the little (or big!) things in life that make me oh-so-happy. Let’s make Mondays a day to reflect on the goodies, and not the baddies.”

I also just finished Brené Brown’s book “Daring Greatly,” in which she writes, “The shudder of vulnerability that accompanies joy is an invitation to practice gratitude, to acknowledge how truly grateful we are for the person, the beauty, the connection, or simply the moment before us.”

Katie’s been doing it long enough that she’s up to 700 things (doing 10 each time). Well, here goes nothing. Here are the ten things from the past week that I’m thankful for:

1. Songbirds coming for seeds at my bird feeder. I love watching the mourning doves walk around the porch, they’re really cute.
2. Lots of books to be read.
3. A warm home to wait out the storms in.
4. A field and woods near my house to walk in. (Picture above.)
5. Good soil on the island I live on, for growing food.
6. Lots of schoolwork to do means I won’t get bored!
7. My partner being employed doing work that he loves (even if it means working backshift sometimes).
8. Being able to spend time with him on Valentine’s Day, even though we were both too tired to do much more than eat takeout BBQ chicken.
9. My friend Catriona safely giving birth to her son Xander last week. I can’t wait til they come back to Cape Breton to visit!
10. Real, handwritten-on-paper letters in the mailbox from friends in Ontario and BC. A letter is a little piece of magic, I think.

Well, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be! In fact, I can think of many more. I guess I will save them for next week. Thanks, Katie, for the inspiration!