Take a Look Around You and See...

Recipe for happiness:

Look at a slice of your life through the camera lens.

It clarifies for you the beauty you might otherwise overlook.

Stop.

Look.

Find beauty in what's around you...whatever that may be.

The new...

The familiar ...

The loved.

The ordinary.

But yet extraordinary...because we can appreciate it for the fact it's well-worn; its service and endurance in season after season.

What you may take for granted one day, 

Could easily be gone the next...

We've had so many reminders of that fact lately.

LOOK.

Look at how fortunate you really are.

Donate if you can.  

So many are hurting, left with absolutely NOTHING due to freak tornadoes all over this country, flooding in so many places, weather that is really of an apocalyptic nature...

Do what ever you can to help.  

(I heard that FEMA is broke, and yet our leader is giving borrowed billions to North African nations. 

My fellow Americans....that means that it's up to us.)

The Magic of the Ordinary: Up the Lane for the Mail

Trying to look for the bright side... 

in living over 700 miles from our sweet, 
beautiful little grandson, 

I can honestly say I've found it.

We have instead of short, little visits we might have if we lived nearby, we have all day, for a whole week, to be with Levi for the parts of his daily life:  in his house, on his turf, with his things.  


All day long we watch and participate;  from the morning, where he wakes up all sweet, smiley, and whispery...

To the breakfast, naps, lunches, playtime, bath time, bedtime:  all of it.

Maybe we wouldn't see all of this if we lived closer and just had short visits and then went back home.

Today I'm sharing a sweet little ritual we were able to do with him each day while we were there with him the first week of April, just as Spring was blooming out on the Alabama countryside.

"Wanna go get the mail, Levi?"

We got him this wagon for Christmas and with his little Bumbo seat to help him sit up firmly inside, it gets a workout, he uses it a lot!

He gets so happy, he knows where we're heading.  


Bump, bump, bump, up the long driveway to the mailbox!  


To him, this is just a wonderful thing, he loves to be outdoors and every day it's nice outside, this is what he does in the afternoon!

Grandpa lifts him up and he retrieves the mail...

Good job, Levi!  

"Nana, where are you?"

"C'mon!"

(Those adorable, kissable little chubby hands...
...and rubber-band dented wrists!)

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!




THE MAGIC OF THE ORDINARY, a true gift.

The Gift of an Ordinary Day...

3

It's sunny...

and it's just beautiful today...

The clock is ticking, the wind is blowing the wind chimes -- and I can hear them through the open window....

In the big tree above the porch, there is a gathering of what sounds like hundreds of birds.

(Perhaps they are planning their trip south that's coming up soon.)

But, best of all, there is not a radio, television or video game going, anywhere in the house.

I sometimes love the sound of alone, but not for very long.

It is a pleasure that is best kept in small doses.

I need the family around, but these little snatched times of silence, oh, they are a gift, and I gladly will collect them, and treasure each one.

Silence is the sound, to me, of satisfaction, contentment.

And, as I work around here, doing the repetitive tasks that a mother and a wife must do, I can enjoy this little gift of silence...while I listen to the broom as I sweep, or the dishes as they clang when I place them into the dishwasher.....the cloth as I wipe down the counters, the dogs softly snoring as they nap on the rug, or the tractor or the combine as it passes by on the road, on the way to the next field, with the grain truck clambering close behind.

Sometimes, I deprive myself of silence, and wonder why I should do that when I enjoy it so much.