101 Things We Love (aka Grace in Small Things: Sunday Edition #134)

My kitty, Onion, is pretty darn lovely.

I asked the people on Twitter to tell me what they loved, and it turns out that they love a lot of things. They love more than a hundred of them, in fact, so I curated and edited the following compilation of our loves to spread it around a little:

1. the sound of snapping open a fresh can of something fizzy
2. coffee
3. the smell of freshly cut grass
4. reading
5. friends who get it
6. a fluffy cat curled up next to me and cooing like a happy pigeon while he sleeps
7. having written
8. a good toilet flange
9. my husband's hands
10. yoghurt, specifically spelled with the H in the middle
11. holding my hand out the window of a car while going down the highway in summer
12. a good latte
13. great writing
14. avocados
15. callouses on my fingertips from playing guitar
16. lavender
17. my kid snoring
18. darjeeling tea with coconut flavouring and milk
19. the ukulele
20. ice cold water
21. the feel of suede
22. new book smell
23. the way I get goosebumps when my husband looks at me
24. that moment in a movie you've seen a hundred times before that still takes your breath away and paralyzes you as you wait for it
25. Hendrick's gin
26. new jammies
27. performing
28. laughing
29. hot buttery popcorn with garlic powder and hot sauce
30. connecting again with a person you love but thought you'd lost
31. kitties
32. happy hour with friends
33. cooking a good meal
34. discovering new music
35. British miniseries
36. Sunday afternoon naps
37. watermelon
38. a clean house
39. chosen families
40. that kids wear costumes just because they can
41. kissing
42. almond biscotti drizzled with chocolate
43. rainy days
44. smoked swiss cheese
45. singing loudly
46. cheesy dance moves
47. my dog
48. green buds on trees
49. thunderstorms
50. fuzzy kitty bellies
51. popsicles
52. the power of music to connect people
53. surprising my stepson
54. pizza
55. rain drumming on the roof late at night
56. pedicures
57. feeling like I belong
58. love
59. crunching through ice cubes
60. cats purring
61. burritos
62. listening to a tone deaf person who loves to sing butcher their favourite song
63. finding a bra that fits just so
64. chocolate cake
65. the first night you notice the fireflies have come back for the summer
66. summery days with thunder clouds off in the distance
67. peppermint
68. street fairs
69. pesto
70. listening to wild birds outside
71. Mad Men
72. going out for brunch on the weekend
73. crafting
74. swimming
75. the colour of the light at golden hour
76. grapefruits
77. being read to
78. Scully and Mulder's dedication to bringing out the best in each other in The X-Files
79. sushi
80. photography
81. random acts of kindness from strangers
82. the cool side of the pillow
83. kisses from my son
84. drinking iced tea in the shade on a hot day
85. finishing a creative project I feel really good about
86. Sam Cooke
87. cracking through the shell on crème brûlée
88. poetry
89. learning
90. time travel
91. how excited my dog gets every time he sees me
92. dulce de leche ice cream
93. the sound of my kids laughing
94. clean sheets fresh from the line
95. roasted Brussels sprouts
96. old school rotary telephones
97. dancing until my body hurts
98. bowties
99. warm sunshine with a slight breeze
100. sleeping in
101. long lists of things people love

Thanks to all the good people who answered my call!

What do you love?

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things.

30 Reasons Why I Might Not Follow You Back On Twitter

1. You have #TeamFollowBack in your bio.


2. You don't reply to anyone in your tweet stream.


3. Your tweet stream is little more than a list of giveaways and sponsored posts.


4. You are hyper-focused on one topic and never stray into human communication.


5. You constantly tweet links telling me to follow you on another social media platform.


6. You only retweet other people while rarely saying anything yourself.


7. You call yourself crazy, drunk, weird, or passionate.


8. You promise your followers things if you gain a certain number of them.


9. You only tweet links to your blog or content on other sites.


10. Your bio claims that you are a social media guru or maven.


11. You promise to commit to social good activities only if your followers promote your content.


12. You are a business who sells tractors or diaper supplies or whathaveyou three thousand miles away from where I live.


13. You are heavy on the leetspeak.


14. Your bio claims that you are an expert on three or more things.


15. Your tweet stream is cluttered with app spam from the other apps you use telling me where you are, how many calories your burned running, or what your twitter stats are.


16. You make sexist, pornographic, or otherwise hate-mongering comments.


17. You have no bio whatsoever.


18. Your company bio reads like a board room mission statement.


19. Your whole stream is inspirational quotations.


20. Your bio claims to be that of an appliance, as though I want to have a relationship with a food mixer.


21. You have only two tweets to your name, but you already follow 2000 people, only 12 of whom follow you back.


22. Your avatar is still the default egg picture.


23. Your account is private and you have little to no information in your bio to help me figure out if I know you or why I would want to follow you.


24. You have multiple people tweeting from your account but never specify whose tweet is whose.


25. The majority of your tweet stream is you tweeting at celebrities and big brands.


26. You use exclamation marks in every single tweet.


27. You don't tweet in English.


28. Your bio states that you want to spread your religion.


29. Your bio focuses on you as a salesperson.


30. Your content is devoted to bitching about how other people are doing it wrong :)

25 Things On My To Do List Before I Head to Laguna Niguel to Speak At Mom 2.0 Summit

1. Look forward to getting out of Saskatchewan for a few days, because this is what our spring dumped on us last night. For serious:



2. Sand the devil callouses off my feet so that they look less hoof-like in sandals.

3. Shave my legs. I have what we Canucks refer to as "insulation" going on, but I don't think anyone's going to be complimenting me on my luxurious fur in Laguna.

4. Find the business cards with my actual name on them, because, believe it or not, I have a name other than Schmutzie!

5. Practice my talk over and over until my voice cracks.

6. Try to rework my talk, because it takes ten minutes to get through, not the seven it's supposed to.

7. Fuss over writing a sentence that ends in a preposition, because procrastination by grammar worry feels productive.

8. Laugh at the men's deodorant in Shoppers Drug Mart. BELIEVE IN YOUR SMELLF:



9. Work on my word enunciation, because maybe I can fit all ten minutes into seven minutes if I speak really fast.

10. Go clothes shopping, because I am still wearing the clothes I bought for BlogHer '10.

11. Launder all of the things.

12. Feel like I'm marching headlong into old age while organizing my vitamins and allergy medication into a days-of-the-week pill organizer.

13. Investigate my suitcase for signs of cat urine, because Onion is an evil bastard who likes to thwart my travel plans.

14. Listen to the whole of Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" album at least three times, because repetition is my lorazepam.



15. Pick up American money at the bank.

16. Play dirty words in Scrabble to amuse myself enough to forget my travel anxiety.

17. Feel the old burn of the grudge I hold against my grandmother for that time she wouldn't let me play FUCK on a triple word score for many tens of points.

18. Place a panicked call to my hairdresser. Leave a panicked message when she doesn't pick up. Panic.

19. Practice gelling my unruly sideburns behind my ears.

20. Make both Onion and the Palinode wheeze with extra squeezes, because I'll miss them when I have to sleep without them in my hotel room. The other two cats are being pissants, so they can suck it.



21. Try to keep my cool about the fact that I get to room with the inimitable Suebob.

22. Make sure I have my itinerary handy, because I have to make my way through seven airports on this one trip, and I WILL NOT FAIL.

23. Write extra poetry in advance so that I can keep up with my #365poems project while I'm travelling.

24. Write a prayer tanka while waiting for the herbal anxiety tincture to kick in:

Remember your feet.
They move on assuredly.
They know the way there.
They've borne you since your first year,
and bear what you cannot see.

25. Pack my suitcase.