Okay, mostly fruit, but veggies too. Fruits are all natural, delicious, and healthy sweet treats. Sadly, apples, although plentiful on this apple orchard, are one of my least favorite fruits. Yet they are beautiful to photograph.
May your holiday include healthy treats.
Kindness feels underrated in recent years. Yet the world would stop spinning without it. I wouldn’t be able to go on. It comes from family, friends, and strangers every day of my life as a driving force for good in the world.
It is also just as vital to my survival to give kindness as well as to receive it. It makes my life brighter when I do something for someone else out of kindness; no expectation that it is returned, but perhaps hoping it is passed on. Acts of kindness give life value and purpose.
I believe that old addage: Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. For me, the kindness leads to beauty. There’s nothing like seeing a tired cashier’s face light up because you gave them a kind word, or a man laugh because a woman held the door open for him.
May kindness be part of your every day life, both the giving and the receiving with an open heart.
I am a titch OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Yet I know that life is not perfect. We are no longer in the Garden of Eden, so things go awry. Sometimes the best times are in the imperfections.
This was in a dressing room at Caroline’s Consignment in Portage. It was a wonderful reminder that I don’t have to be perfect, nor is it expected.
To do our best and be ourselves: that is the expectation. And doing our best? Not every day or all the time. We need down time in order to be able to do our best. Sabbath, we need sabbath: rest, calm, peace.
May you find sabbath, an hour a day, a day a week, or a full weekend a month. Do what you need to rest and refresh so that you can enjoy this wonderfully imperfect life.
Life Does Not Have to be Perfect to be Wonderful
I believe hope is a powerful and necessary tool to survive in this world. I recently needed to make a decision, and until the moment I made it, I was jittery, anxious, and uncomfortable in my own skin.
Making the decision in the vein of hope freed me. I was instantly at peace. If I fall, at least I tried.
As much as I wish peace and joy for others, I don’t experience as much as I’d like for myself. But perhaps that makes it all the more genuine and treasured.
Wishing you peace and joy in every day. May you never be without hope.
Marshall is one of hundreds of small cities in the USA. I thoroughly enjoy this little town with antique and craft shops. More recently even a pet supply store and a scrapbooking shop. There’s something beautiful and enchanting to me about towns like this: Where everybody knows your name, and most shops put out a bowl of water for dogs in the summer.
The first half of my life I had a conflict getting my hair cut. I enjoyed getting it cut, but I’d never know what it would look like after. I’ve always had thin hairs and a lot of them with numerous cowlicks. Everyone wanted to cut my hair where ever we went, but I couldn’t make it look nice at home. I just don’t style it well. And no one believed me when I explained this. They always gave me a style detailed cut, and I’m a wash and go kind of girl.
Then I struck gold half of a lifetime ago: I met Sean. My hair guy. He’s the bomb. He knows where my cowlicks are. He knows how to make my bangs straight. So did my dad, but my dad and I could only do my bangs well; not the rest. So I quit getting it cut. I didn’t have my hairs grow down to my waist because I liked it long. I let it grow because I couldn’t find anyone to cut it without making me look like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.
I met Sean because I worked with his wife. She is also a treasured friend. I am so blessed by their family. We’ve been friends for more than two decades, and I know my life is richer for having them and their value system in it. Never mind that my hair looks good most of the time (when I remember to get it cut before I lose my gourd and wack my bangs inappropriately).
For me, a hair cut it vital time with a good friend. May we all have friends so good for so long.
Office Supplies give me the illusion that I am organized and in control. Perhaps this is why I enjoy traditional scrapbooking. There are so many supplies similar to an office: cutting systems, pens and markers galore, adhesive in so many forms, stickers in every shape and size, and papers everywhere! Yep, I’m hooked. Which reminds me, I’m a hooked on crochet too. That has fun tools too.
Freelance writer, editor, hobby photographer, and administrative assistant
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." Groucho Marx
The Good Things Black People Do, Give and Receive All Over The World
