I love

I love summer evenings with thunder clouds rumbling in the distance, brining fresh cool mountain air and relief from the heat.

I love tan feet.

I love O Hello Pandora station.

I love fresh baked crusty bread with nuts and white chocolate and challah bread with sugar sprinkled over top and crusty baguette and fresh cold water and grapes and good cheese.

I love the smell of Finnegan's neck when he nuzzles into me.

I love how strong Henry is and how he gets quiet when he knows I'm telling him something that means so much to me it hurts to tell it.

I love surprises that I don't think I love at first.

I love Phoebe's laugh when she's laughing at herself.

I love Celia talking about the books she reading . . . I love that she reads.  Miracles, it turns out, happen.

I love Piper's constant handling of her hamster.  CONSTANT HANDLING.

I love John.

I love that love evolves and is at times rather pocky and so real it scares you and so soft and gentle it makes you cry.

I love good books that surprise me.

I love books that entertain me.

I love books that are so real, I keep looking for the characters in the crowds.

I love books.

I love mountains, big ones, small ones, old ones, new ones--pretty much any I can climb or walk or just be in.

I love the ocean and how it holds you in a way nothing else does--though really, maybe it's like life, both gentle and rough and really, you don't know what's going to happen next.

I love my family--my very very big family.  I have four parents, 15 sisters and 15 brothers, and many many nieces and nephews.  I know all their names and almost all their birthdays (I can get the month if nothing else).  I think of each one of them.  I am pretty sure they don't know how often I think of them, but I do, like a rock or insect collection and wonder at their unique complexity and rare and precious beauty.  I feel lucky blessed to be so insanely rich in family.

I love yoga (I now, EVERYONE loves yoga)--it's transfigured me.  Someday I'll write about how it has, but for today, I'll leave it at I love it.

I love running--fast, slow, hurting, limping, skipping, long, short, uphill and down.

I love sleeping in freshly cleaned sheets--I LOVE clean sheets.

I love sleep.

I love getting up before anyone else in the house.

I love watching the sunrise all by myself.

I love watching the sun set with my whole family.

I love my garden.

I love salad--all types.

I love boots (oh how I love them).

I love Longmire--who isn't a sucker for an old wise cowboy?

I love long drives where I learn about whoever I'm driving with.

I love God.

I love how things like religion change people (some may thing for the worse, but my experience has been always for the better) and makes life brighter and lighter.

I love the end of a good day, when I've eaten just the right amount, played long and hard, had a few good conversations, laughed hard, had a few quiet moments to think about how good my life is and how much I love . . .

and how blessed all this love makes my life.