I was mildly grumping around this morning, for reasons too silly to even bother describing, but I was doing it anyway.

Then I sat down to write my annual donations-to-charities checks. I am far from rich, but I can always afford to give some money to organizations I really, really care about. So I sat here and wrote my little checks. I remembered going through my parents' papers this August after my mom died, and finding an old handwritten list my dad kept of their charitable donations, for tax purposes. It must have had 20 or 30 different charities on it. Some of the amounts were small. It ranged from, I think, $5 to $50. But they were all wonderful charities and many of them were the same ones I give to now. I brought that list back with me, just because it was so typical of my parents.

Grumpiness all gone now...