It’s been twenty years since I wrote this and seven years since I first posted it here on my blog. My list would be different today because I would have to add: settling into our new house. Watching and listening to Diane play her dulcimer. Some things have changed and make me a bit sad, Mike passed away in 2009 and so did Nicolas, my great frisbee catcher.

A couple of days ago, I started to clean old document files off my laptop. I wanted to delete duplicates, rename some files so I could tell what they are about without having to open them over and over again. I wanted to free up some hard drive space. For a computer geek like myself, this is a bit like cleaning out my closet. I may not need a certain shirt, it has a stain, or it doesn’t fit, it needs to go, but I still want to hang on to it. Like cleaning out my closet I may come across something I forgot about because it got lost among all the other things hanging about. In other words, while deleting left over not needed files, I came across one that contains a thing I wrote about thirteen years ago. I wrote it long before I started blogging so I am not sure If I ever posted to a forum or anyplace else on the web.  It doesn’t matter, I like it, I am glad I found it, so I am posting it now. I wrote it just before New Years day back in good ole 2003 before Diane and I became motorhomers. 

My Favorite Things

At this time people usually make resolutions for the New Year. I don’t have a problem with that. I resolve to cruise next year, how is that for a good resolution?

However, I prefer to take this time to reflect back. To think about things and experiences past while they are still memories and have not yet become just history.

So after giving a lot of thought, here is my list of my favorite things. Not in any particular order of preference (Except for the movies).

Any kind of Chocolate or something made with Chocolate including:

Freshly baked brownies.

Chocolate Cake.

Hot Chocolate on a cold morning.

The idea that my son thinks I am cool because I like Coldplay.

The Sunrise:

Over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Over the Grand Canyon.

Over a cruise ship balcony.

Over an Outer Banks Beach.

Over the trees in my front yard.

The Sunset:

Same as above with the following change to the last one:

Over the trees in my backyard.

The smell of a grilled turkey breast as I take it off my charcoal grill.

My grandson smiling at me.

My wife standing in the bedroom doorway and giving me “The Come Hither Look”

Softly stroking my wife’s back.

Napping in front of the TV while a baseball game is on.

Watching a movie while home alone and blasting the Surround Sound as loud as I want.

Building my own computer.

Playing Medal of Honor on my Computer.

Viewing old cruise slides.

Making Christmas ornaments.

Decorating the Christmas tree.

It’s a Wonderful Life and other forms of Capricorn.

Field of Dreams.

The Natural.

Cold Mountain (the movie and the book).

The Lord of the Rings (all the movies and all the books).

Glory.

The Green Mile.

The Shawshank Redemption.

(Enough of the movies already!)

Playing:

Frisbee with my dog.

Catch with my son.

Footsie with my wife.

Long phone conversations with:

MyDad.

My Daughter Jeri the nurse.

Mike, my partner and long-time friend.

My Wife.

Falling asleep while listening to:

David Crosby’s first solo album, (If I Could Only Remember My Name)

Days of Future Passed.

Pat Metheny’s Map of the World.

Listening to:

Annie Lennox.

Sting.

Classic Frank Sinatra  (It's Witchcraft comes to mind first)

Newsboys.

My Son on the drums.

Watching:

My wife’s face as she leads the music at our church.

My son playing the drums at our church.

Taking Diane to a movie, dinner, and coffee or Dinner, Coffee, and a movie.

And just in case I did not mention it before:

Diane giving me “The Come Hither Look”

Derrick

Posted from Galax, Va