Things I like very much and give thanks for...

Just reflecting on reasons for gratitude, and I have one little one and one big one.

Little one first: coatmakers (or shirtmakers, or whoever) that add a couple of spare buttons somewhere unobtrusive inside the garment. My winter coat and I got involved with a grocery cart the other night while I was stretching and straining to get heavy groceries into the trunk of Harriet. I realized after I'd driven away that I was now short one coat button. MOST UNHAPPY about it too: it makes me feel "derelict." So I was grumbling about having to go and buy a cardful of substitutes and LO! there was a spare!!! All respectable again.

And the big one: the moment when we are confronting a major (five-figure) semi-emergency capital outlay at Most Holy and Undivided (can you say "boilers"?), and I am beginning to hyperventilate, and one of the medium-elderly men of substance in the parish sidles up to me and mutters out of the corner of his mouth, "Don't you worry about this, eh"--they never quite get to the point of saying, "Gotcha covered, babe" -- but the comfort is equivalent. Thank God, Thank God, who puts it into the hearts of his faithful people to give gifts for his service and worship.