observations of the ordinary
Greetings from my kitchen table! My big three are playing upstairs, the littlest is napping early (something about me having a training tonight and the baby not taking a bottle and me attempting to get him to nap at odd hours so to attempt him napping while I’m gone), and here I am taking the few minutes to finish up this almost finished essay and get er out to ya!
here we go, a few observations and photos to go with.
1. these collages.
My 5 year old daughter and I were inspired by the lovely In Progress from Meg Fatharly and her many mini collages to create this kitchen scene and a look into our home’s plant filled front window. We had access to some colorful construction paper, scissors, and glue sticks (and 1 scrap of cloth). They are perfectly imperfect and it brought me back to my childhood days when I’d spend hours in my room creating mini dollhouses inside of shoe boxes with all the scraps my mom would supply.
I’d hardly consider collages a “trade” of mine now, as I spent considerable time on this—3 hours to be exact, and it is not anything anyone would trade anything to own. However, it did remind me that we often don’t give ourselves enough credit for the things we aren’t half bad at. Being an expert is enviable in today’s culture. Being anything less just means you’ve failed. The problem is, being an expert is unreachable because we’ve been conditioned to think the word expert is synonymous with the best (or at least top 10). And quite frankly, there are too many amazing humans in this world for us to ever be good at anything then.
So I must remind you of the FULL quote.
Often shortened to,
Jack of all trades, master of none.
is actually,
Jack of all trades, master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
2. this middle finger.
I have no idea why my dad brought this middle finger up north. Or why he displayed it on a shelf in the upstairs bathroom. It’s actually a finger puppet. Yes, you heard me correctly. You can wear the middle finger, on your middle finger.
All I know is that both
the finger puppet itself and
the randomness of the act of driving five hours north with the finger to place it on a bathroom shelf for no apparent reason
made us all chuckle.
And maybe that’s all that matters.
3. this cute female cardinal and her little tuft
I am well aware that trillions of people take pictures of cardinals in the snow. My husband asks me all the time—what are you even going to do with that photo. Nothing really. But I think that the act of taking the photo (or a few) every once in a while allows me to stop and marvel at the little beauty instead of just passing it by.
4. my kids adoration for their GG.
This is my grandma, their great grandma. It is a beautiful thing for them to be able to know her so well. And it is a beautiful thing for me to watch her with them and repeatedly learn lessons of patience and what is really important.
5. this really works.
They are carrying their babies in baby carriers while I am carrying their baby brother in a baby carrier.
If you are ever having a rough day with your kids (ahem…however often that may be), look back at pictures of them. Sometimes patience is hard to grasp when your standing in your own shoes. But if you can send them all away so as to take a minute and get a chance to glance at a photo of the cuties, it’s as if you’re standing on the outside, looking in. And it reminds you that your kids are, in fact, pretty great. They’re only sometimes annoying.
6. beauty can always be found.
Take this winter bouquet for example.
You can find bits and pieces of beauty everywhere around you, if you look hard enough. And when you put those small bits of beauty all together …
well, you know the rest.
<3 Tash
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