Small and Wonderful Things . . .

 

"The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But who gets excited by a mere penny?...It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted with pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. what you see is what you get." ~Anne Dillard

A few of the small and wonderful things which bring untold joy into my life. It's the small things in life which truly mean the most. Simple abundance . . . it's the best.  

 

Getting to live in a place which is filled with abundance.  The colours.  The community.  The peace.  The quiet.  The history.  I lived not a stones throw away from my now home to one of my childhood homes. (airforce history) When I was growing up, this was all forest.  My simple little home is surrounded with beautiful trees and kind neighbors.  I am blessed.  I would never have thought when I was a girl and living at the end of the main road you see in this photograph that one day I would be an oldish woman living just across the way. Life is so interesting with all of its twists and turns.

 

Beautiful sunsets.  I love the view of the world I have in my front window. It blesses me every day, in one way or another!

 

This daughter of mine and the easy companionship we share with each other. I love that I get to talk to her just about every day and that we can see each other as often as we want to. She is very special to me. I love her very much. I am very proud of the person that she has become, for the challenges she has overcome.  I just am plain proud of her and love her to infinity and beyond. 

This fabulous son of mine and the efforts he makes to be a part of my life.  He's a great son, husband, father, etc.  He is a kind and thoughtful person.  He is really special to me.  When I think back through the years, he has always made an effort to know that he loves me and cares about my welfare. I hope that he knows how very much I love him and how proud I am of the person that he is, and what a blessing he is in my life. I am so grateful for him. I am also grateful that he is still with us after his serious health problems over the past two years.  I pray every night that he will have a long and a fruitful life, and a happy life.

 

This wonderful firstborn child of mine.  A  good and loving son, father and husband. Of all my children, he has had the roughest time.  With a real father who seriously had nothing to do with him all the years of his growing up, and a step father who was probably not as good to him as he could should have been, he has had to struggle to find his way every inch of the journey.   He is a good and a kind man with a generous and tender heart and a good soul.  I am very proud of him also and of who he is as a person, a son, a father, a husband. I am grateful for all of his efforts to be a part of my life and to include me in his. He is the one who made me into a mother and then a grandmother. No greater gift could have been given. 

Grateful also for a mother who taught me how to be a good person.  I re-watched her funeral at the weekend. It was still on the mortuary's site.  I had gone there to read a friend's obituary and then just checked to see if mom's was also there and saw that the film of her funeral was also still there.  It broke my heart all over again, but at the same time it was a good thing to be able to watch and listen to it.  Re-watching it from over two years later was  sobering. I still can't believe that she is not with us. I think of her multiple times each day, and then some. I look forward to a time when I can be with her again, although I am not in any hurry just yet to get there!

 

I am so grateful for this best friend of mine. This sweet sister.  Of all of us (my brother, she and myself) she is the most caring and attentive.  I have a brain like a sieve. She forgets nothing.  She keeps even the most minute details of the people she cares about in her brain with a diligence which puts me to shame.  She is such a hard worker and so kind.  She has always been a great ballast, a stabilizing influence in my life.  She is very much like my Aunt Freda in many ways. You can tell her anything. You can trust her.  You can rely on her. You can go to her for advice and know that whatever advice she gives is trustworthy and good advice.  I just love her so very much.  When we were children we used to say that when we got old we wanted to be like the Baldwin sisters, living together in a big old house with each other for company.  We may not have that exactly, but we are pretty close to that.  

She is one of my life's greatest blessings, and I know you must get tired of hearing that, but its true and I can't stop saying it!  I am blessed! 

This sweet soul brother of mine has been another really stabilizing influence in my life.  I can still remember how excited my sister and I were the day he was born. I was almost five years old and I remember being so excited that I had a baby brother that I had my sister by the hand and was dancing around the kitchen floor with her, singing "We have a baby brother."  He is witty and he is kind beyond measure. He also gives pretty great advice, even if I haven't always wanted to take it, lol.  He has worked really hard to make a good life for himself and his family and has always been a great example to me of how to do things the right way.  I am sure he must shake his head at times at just how insane my life has been. I am not sure I have ever been a great influence for any of my family to follow, even though I have tried most of the time to be the best that I can be.  (I am not perfect by any stretch.) I love him very much also.

This man who is the paternal head of our family. I love him very much and feel so blessed to be able to have been given the gift of being able to spend these last years of his life close to him, no matter the difficult route I took to get here.  From him I inherited my easy going nature, and love of music and reading. Time with my father is an extra special blessing, full stop.  

These two furry little scamps and the space they take up in my life and the flavor they add to it.  Meant to be.  Meant to be  . . . 

Faith, family, friends  . . .  my life is filled with an abundance of joy and blessings. My cup truly does runneth over. My life is so good at the moment, I am almost afraid to acknowledge it for fear that the boom will go bust. It almost feels too good to be true.

A thought to carry with you . . . 

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★

 *.˛Lord, let me be one of those

who sits with those whose story

is different from mine.

~Emily Belle Freeman  •。★★ 。* 。

 I need to be a better person. I don't think I give back enough . . . 

In The English Kitchen today  . . .  One, Two, Three, Buttermilk Biscuits.  These biscuits contain only three ingredients, and take only three steps to biscuit perfection. You can be enjoying them in about 15 minutes from start to finish, I kid you not!

I hope your week ahead is filled to overflowing with small and wonderful things.  Be happy and along the way don't forget! 

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And I do too!