What made me smile this week:

1. buying hostess gifts for my trip to the US later this month

2. a child’s sled piled with snowballs

3. the mingled smells of coffee and tangerines

4.discovering delightful blogs to subscribe to: a foodie one, and a bookish one

5. red berries on a tree, powdered with snow

6. magnanimous love sent in a huge box all the way from America

7. picking greenery and putting it around the kitchen (greenery is magic because it arranges itself!)

8. a peppermint chocolate latte with all the trimmings made by Carolyn just for me

9. a successful decorating project (travel, paper, and fonts)

10. beautiful students beaming because they could make this construction: These boots are black.

11. knowing intimacy with the Almighty never changes because of circumstances

12. a long video Skype call with a friend who says it how it is with finesse and incredible largeness of soul

13. having time to teach two girls about pentangles, and seeing their fun with it