Its been a while since I’ve done a good Gratitude List.  With so much good these days, its an easy way to capture a lot of it:

• Meeting Habib Koite and his band.  Getting to speak French and Wolof all night.
• Trying not to get starstruck, but acting all spoony.
• Cracking jokes in Wolof of the FatPig variety.  (See story for details.)
• Finding $10 on the bike path last Friday. Crisp bills, just waiting for me to pick ’em up.
• 29 days of (nearly) consecutive runs (soon to be 30!)
• New running partners who are in better shape than me
• Triathlon and half-marathon dreams
• The abundance of tomatoes from the garden (more than 5lbs in two days)
• Visits from a cousin who is inspiring, positive, and all around fun to hang out with
• Books.  The fact that I’ll never run out of them.
• The shot of motivation that comes from lunch with my editor and friend, Jill.
• Being able to wake up every single day and decide exactly how I want to spend my time
• Shaking off the 9-5 shackles (which have left some deep impressions that are still going away)
• Diene’s ambition on the bike
• Hot people who work at Willy Street Coop
• Dane101.com and their Tuesday Ticket giveaways
• Friends who want to hang out and do fun summer stuff
• Lake Kegonsa being so close to Madison, and being a clean campground
• clean laundry, the scent of snuggle dryer sheets
• the flooded Yahara encouraging more hangout spots for ducks
• work partners who give me business and pay me well
• Seitan and pepper stirfry
• Discovering Ale Asylum’s Hopalicious
• my mac, my iPod, my car, my printer and all other mechanical things that make my life easy
• Bonniejean, who has introduced me to countless new friends, and still remains a good friend
• the myriad choices of coffee shops/sattelite offices.
• pandora.com, kcrw.com, NPR.com, and iTunes
• public libraries
• the San Francisco Chronicle reprinting my story