Forty reasons

40 reasons to be happy right now:

1. My 40th birthday is behind me and I feel great
2. I'm all done throwing kids' birthday parties until next June
3. Air conditioning in the bedroom
4. I own my own business and love what I do
5. An interesting opportunity that's come my way
6. Earl and I have been married for 16 years and 2 days
7. I'm embracing moderation and doing pretty well with it so far, by the grace of God
8. School starts in a couple of weeks
9. We still have a couple of weeks of vacation before school starts
10. Singing well this weekend
11. Looking forward to mass with the Kenyan community next Sunday
12. So many good birthday wishes for me, Abby and Timmy
13. Almost caught up with laundry from our time in Canada
14. Fair next weekend = best ice cream on Earth (in moderation, of course)
15. New vacuum works really well, even on the weirdly textured rug at the front door
16. Iced coffee
17. Sweet kisses from the birthday boy
18. Brian's box score and AL East standings obsession
19. Brian's making friends with a dad at the pool who was wearing an Ortiz shirt ("I talked to him about David Ortiz!")
20. Timmy's "good dream" of Ortiz hitting a home run to Canada, confounding the other team because they didn't know the way to the little house.
21. A good birthday party for Abby last weekend -- pedicures and pillowcases
22. Still feeling good about my take-charge decisions
23. Kayaking on Friday...will have to do that again sometime soon
24. Listening to spiritual nudges
25. Timmy requesting "more sawdfish" at dinner last night...okay, that's really a reason to shudder, not to be happy, but it was pretty funny at the time
26. Four- and five-year-olds randomly singing psalms during the day ("Taste and see the goodness of the Lord...." Psalm 34 for the curious.)
27. Abby enjoying her new dollhouse from Grammy and Grampy Fay, with hand-braided dollhouse rugs made by Grammy Ruth of blessed memory
28. Twinkle toes
29. Getting Abby to agree to exercise with me tomorrow (we'll see how that goes!)
30. Unexpected party guests that turn out to be lovely
31. A funny name anagram for me: "An eerie, joyful moan." A friend commented that I should use that for a writing prompt. Hmmm.
32. Swimming in the lac; kickboarding, too
33. Unexpectedly singing for a quinceañera mass yesterday. So beautiful.
34. Celebrating our anniversary all weekend
35. New students
36. Longtime students
37. Chorus of pirates at Timmy's party this afternoon
38. Home sweet home
39. Learning that I'm not the only person who doesn't care for the beach (thanks, Naomi!)
40. Looking forward to a weekend getaway with Earl in October