THXTHXTHX

I'd like to officially acknowledge that SJDE has the best taste of any person I've ever met in all of time. Everything (slight exaggeration) he ever recommends to me (even when I refuse to listen to it, read it, watch it, or look it up for months after he recommends it to me, and even when the first time I listen to it I say, "Nah, it's okay, but I'm not in love with it") eventually ends up on my list of favorite things. I'd like to point out a few such things (in no particular order):


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Sweet Disposition by Temper Trap
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Free Sigur Ros Music (still working on loving this)

The Final Stanza of The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot

No One's Gonna Love You and The Funeral by Band of Horses
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Intervention and Keep the Car Running by Arcade Fire
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
Generator^First Floor by Freelance Whales
The last 10 seconds of this Nike ad




And last, but not least, thxthxthx.com


Which brings me to my point:


Gratitude journals.


I've been trying to start one for like maybe a million years ever since President Eyring said it would be a good idea to look for the hand of the Lord in our lives, but everything I've tried seemed so cheesy and ridiculous. Then I saw thxthxthx.com and everything changed.


For example, Dear Jajaja.


After perusing the blog, I realized that I'd found the solution to the dilemma. While I may or may not be approaching this from the same angle as Ms. Leah, I feel like this is going to be a good step in the right direction for my gratitude. Especially inside this lovely reproduction of Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Dear Taco Seasoning,

Thank you for the way you, in your plastic baggie remind me of how ridiculously cheap I am about ingredients and everything else in the whole wide world (expcept jeans) and how Macsen's ownership of everything I'll ever wish I had will always compensate.
Liz


Dear Purple, 
Thank you for the streamers, the balloons, the sign on the whiteboard, and the bottles of nail polish. You remind me of Kaitlin.
Liz


Dear 0213,
Thank you for the way I am almost always sleeping by the time you come around. Hope I don't see you for a while.
Liz


Dear Gluten,
Thank you for being such a ready excuse to not eat things I didn't even want to eat anyways.
Liz


(More on gluten to come...)


Dear Sammy,
Thank you for your excellent taste in everything from women to music to humor to proper use of facebook to poetry to gelato to the proper function and use of napkins and for your consistent wearing of sweaters.  
Liz