59 Things to Smile About

59 Things to Smile About

By D. S. Mitchell

1.) The roll of thunder and the flash of lightening

2.) The sound of crows calling
3.) Grandma’s 1940 aluminum cake carrier
4.) Having a flower budget
5.) Toddlers in sandboxes
6.) Homemade tamales
7.) Fresh baked apple pie
8.) Big Sur
9.) Fire trucks all red and shiny
10.) Liquor in crystal decanters

11.) Walking the dunes
12.) Tillamook cheddar cheese
13.) Sails in the wind
14.) Still saving my change in a piggy bank
15.) Making church steeples with my hands
16.) Finding a parking space at the front door
17.) Making Cannabis truffles
18.) Eating Cannabis truffles
19.) A ‘she-shed’ for the garden
20.) Waltzing in the Pittock Mansion ballroom
21.) Scrabble on a rainy Sunday

22.) My Alma Mater, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon
23.) Daddy’s cherished gray ‘Bogie’ Fedora
24.) Snowmobile races
25.) 501’s and a leather jacket
26.) The art section at Goodwill
27.) Lake life
28.) Ping Pong basement championships

29.) Making floral bouquets from flowers collected from the yard
30.) High school football games
31.) White cotton shorts
32.) Being nice when someone calls you vulgar names on Twitter
33.) Astoria Sunday Market, on a sunny day
34.) A drive up mailbox
35.) A dog

36.) A cat
37.) Fresh baked bread
38.) First day of school
39.) Last day of school
40.) Wainscotting
41.) Cheese fondue with little bread squares
42.) Having read every book on the shelf
43.) Shiny oak floors
44.) First ski week-end
45.) A Blue Heron in the marsh

46.) Walking hand in hand with a child
47.) Wrapped peppermints in a glass dish
48.) Making pictures out of clouds
49.) Old photo albums
50.) Peanuts and popcorn at the ball game
51.) Oversize reckless, passionate modern art pieces
52.) Never feeling older than 17
53.) Powell’s Books, Pearl District, Portland, Oregon
54.) Spring wildflowers

55.) White curtains, blowing gently on a summer breeze

56.) Looking at childhood pictures in an old photo album

57.) Catching crawdads with my grandson

58.) Lunch with the girls

59.) Snuggling and cuddling with someone special

I hope some of my reasons to smile, made you smile. Tomorrow, Calamity News and Politics will be back covering the Washington, D.C. hotplate, and I doubt  there will be many reasons to smile in that environment.