An incomplete list of things I am grateful for, vaguely in order of importance:

• A happy, healthy, thriving marriage to a wonderful woman. And to see her thriving in her various gifts: not only an excellent mother and homemaker (though she very much is), but also an excellent actress, singer, artist, and writer.

• Happy, healthy daughters who are very 13 and 11 in ways that are sometimes challenging but mostly joyful and excellent.

• Holy Trinity Anglican Church. “Messy but not toxic”, as our rector regularly puts it, and rightly. As I sometimes append when talking to people: Because you don’t get to avoid the “messy” part; you only get to choose whether “messy” will also mean “toxic”.

• The many good friends in our lives — those in and around our church community, those I have known literally my whole life, those I have been friends with since college, those I have come to know since then, and those (not few!) with whom I have been friends almost entirely via the internet.

• Opportunities to write and speak publicly in ways that I hope will move the needle at least a tiny bit in helpful directions — something I didn’t exactly set out to do earlier in my career but which has become really important to me.

• The fact that some small list of people cares about my music — the folks who subscribe to my music newsletter and YouTube channel are few but very encouraging as I keep slogging away at a symphony.

• Being solidly employed: not a small thing, or remotely guaranteed, in this very wacky software job market!

• Loyal Coffee. I spend a lot of time there, and it’s a lovely space and very good coffee.

• Cinchona Coffee, which I frequent less than Loyal, but which has perhaps the best coffee in Colorado Springs. Bonus: the fact that it’s colocated with Provision Bread & Bakery, which along with Nightingale Bread semi-regularly supplies our family with very yummy bread — and Provision is also a great source of locally-made granola.

• Jennifer at Lincoln St. Barbers. Having a reliably excellent haircut is an underappreciated Very Good Thing.

• Dorico for writing music. Even after half a decade, I remain incredibly impressed by it; it still feels like a breath of fresh air compared to Sibelius. Every significant work I have composed in that time has been written there.