Life is amazing and wonderful, we all know and feel this fervently in our souls. And yet, why is it that so often it feels mundane, frustrating, and even disappointing? For me, it is that I forget, that given alternatives, I really would choose the life I live. Or, I forget those basic blessings I enjoy and take them for granted (health, love, a reliable source of income, testimony, family) and get caught up in those much less important things that can always be improved and never really achieved (cleaner house, skinnier body, etc.). Sometimes, it is simply that the payoff is not immediate in many of the things I spend my time on. I keep my house clean so that my children live in a welcoming environment - but it is something that you do every day because it is undone every day. Laundry, dishes, driving kids to activities, helping them get their homework done and keeping them on track, all these things are done often because they are either undone often or simply need to be done each day. Therein lies the tricky part. How to maintain daily joy and enthusiasm when the daily things have lost some of that luster. Making a sack lunch for my son when he started kindergarten about melted my heart... for the first week. But, years later - packing lunches is not high on my "melt your heart" scale.
So, what is to be done? I have found that very little things can boost my spirits and put a spring back into my step. I think that is because, as I said before, I do believe in how I am spending my time. I know it is the most important thing I can be doing and so it takes very little to restore my spirits and put a smile on my face. Unfortunately, I forget to do them. The little things have a way of falling off the priority list. I shared some of these things with my sister Kristin and she really encouraged me to blog about it; to remind myself and to give both of us ideas on how to find those rays of sunshine when it seems that clouds have taken up permanent residence in our skies.
That's what I will do. I will post some fun things that take just a little bit of this or a little bit of that, but have big payoffs in how we feel about ourselves and in turn about our lives and those around us. I hope that you also find that a little bit goes a long way!
