March In Review

Joining here with Emily Freeman, Chatting At the Sky, and others, to share as we glance in the rear view mirror and prepare to move ahead into April, equipped with all we learned in March.

March Lessons:

1. Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist, (great book), wrote on his blog a phrase I love.

                                                          mise en place

Love the sound of that (even though I won't pretend to say it with a French accent). It is a French term chefs would use for everything in place, all ingredients in order and tools prepared and ready to create a delicious masterpiece. He writes..."For writers, I think it is equally important to have your workspace organized and ready to go, nothing in your way."

Actually, I can quickly find just about anything on my desk, even if it does look a mess, there is some order to the piles and it drives me crazy when I can't find something. But I love this phrase - wrote it on an index card to lean against the lamp as a reminder to create order, to think ahead of the tools I'll need, to be prepared. To work toward mise en place.

I know enough of myself, though, to know I do need to just start. Not wait until everything is perfectly in line - it is a goal - but the balance is to do something, to write, even in my messy place (the English mispronunciation).

2. Another blogger and author, Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room, wrote of her definition of style. It is a style I can understand without worrying about color wheels or texture or whatever. Real life.

"When  I talk about style, I'm thinking about my authentic style of living at home, not how stylish I am (or am not!)...I don't need all the latest rules...I just need to learn to be more in touch with how my surroundings impact my life."

"My home is a reflection of who I am because I'm happy to be surrounded by stuff that matters to me and I can say good-bye to stuff that doesn't. What that means is: I have to continually refine my home to let go of the stuff I don't need, the stuff that distracts me, and embrace the things that inspire."

What inspires me?
books
plants
clean, uncluttered, uncrowded spaces
to know where everything is (even if it is in a pile)

She adds, "Creating an authentic home is a matter of personal reflection and the determination to make progress in letting go, as much as it is about what to add in."

I realized something. It may look like I collect books. What I am really collecting is words. I want to save them, savor them, remember them, and re-read them. More on this in #6.


3. Books I read this month:
Plain Simple Useful, by Terence Conran
Pottery Barn's Complete Book of the Home
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
How to Grow More Vegetables, by John Jeavons
Propagation Basics, by Steven Bradley

In January and February, I read all fiction. The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the first four Harry Potter books. It felt good this month to go back to all non-fiction, but I will mix it up a bit, for next month.


4. Thursday is my final class for the Colorado Master Gardener course. It has been so much fun to meet one day a week with like-minded plant lovers, to learn just how much we didn't know and still don't know about plants. Lugging our textbook around has built up muscle to prepare for the soon-to-be-here gardening season.

I am not a scientific thinker. Quick impressions and emotional response are more my speed. However, it has been fascinating to dig into the whys of plant growth, plant health, and plant identification.

At our mountain cabin, I recognized the trees are not all identical pine trees. I was able to use the identification key (like a computer flow chart) to discover we have three different types of conifers: Ponderosa Pine, Pinon Pine, and Rocky Mountain Juniper. Now, I see the trees in a completely different way, and around town I can recognize the variety of trees. Once the shrubs green up, I'll be able to identify and learn more about them, too.

On a Nasa website, they say, "Anyone can think like a scientist."

Science is . . .

• Observing the world.
• Watching and listening
• Observing and recording.

Science is curiosity in thoughtful action about the world and how it behaves.

Anyone can have an idea about how nature works. Some people think their idea is correct because "it seems right" or "it makes sense." But for a scientist (who could be you!), this is not enough. A scientist will test the idea in the real world. An idea that predicts how the world works is called a hypothesis.

Hmmm. Is my hypothesis correct?

If an idea, or hypothesis, correctly predicts how something will behave, we call it a theory. If an idea explains all the facts, or evidence, that we have found, we also call it a theory.

I came across this looking up something for my son's schoolwork.
It helps me realize I apply science in more ways than I thought, giving me a new appreciation for science and learning.
Observation.
Pay Attention.
Curiosity in thoughtful action.

5. I have written before of the benefits of aloe in treating burns. Do have an aloe plant in your kitchen? You should. The aloe plant I had before died, probably from overwatering. Three burns in three weeks convinced me I needed another plant.

Yes, I did. I grabbed a cookie tray fresh out of the oven. I can explain what I did, each step in slow motion - I can't explain the logic of it. Oh, it hurt. Six blisters on five fingers, my whole palm red and shiny. I split open a long aloe leaf, soaking my fingers in the cool, slimy juices. Over and over, wiping the fluid across my palm and fingers, gently rubbing it in. For an hour or so.

Our son, the day before, made some aloe jelly, a project from a Junior Master Gardener lesson book we are working through. The juice, scraped out of one leaf, mixed with hand lotion, kept in the refrigerator. I applied it to my palm and fingers several times during the evening.

The next day the pain was gone, the reddness gone, the blisters flat and soft, not raised or raw. Two days later, the two worst blisters were flat, brownish spots, the rest, gone. Amazing, especially as two of the previous burns were still ugly red lines.

Do you have an aloe? I will try very hard not to overwater this one. And, I will try not to burn myself (I do try not to, really!). I seem to have a knack for this - best to keep an aloe handy.

6. Paper. Pen. Pocket.
In "Becoming Jane", the movie biography of Jane Austen, she hears a phrase she likes, pulls a paper and pen out of the pocket in her apron, sits down on a nearby bench and jots it down. The grumpy lady asks, "What is she doing?" The young man, who understands her, answers that she is writing down words, or something like that, I don't remember exactly. Jane Austen was a collector of words, and she was smart enough to write them down immediately. I assume I will remember them later, but rarely do. I learned I do need to carry pen and paper, tucked in a pocket so they are always close at hand, available and ready to jot down a thought or a phrase or that perfect line. To collect those words.

That line she jots down makes it into Pride and Prejudice, "Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it..."
I love how the words she collected became the classic story.

Being a word collector, I collect quotes, thoughts, word images, stories, characters told in words. Why be a word collector? Because they are thoughts of people past and present - thoughts in tangible (sort of) form. Like being able to grab and hold a thought. Which I can't do, and which is why I write down the words. And collect them.

7. Our daughter shared with me a phrase she heard,
                                      THE EINSTEIN HOUR

That time of day when you are at your best, sharpest, most productive, most clear thinking. Plan for that time, use it for your best work. Right now, for me, that is 8 to 9 am. I mark that out on my planner pages and use that time to write. It helps me to have that hour set aside. Ideally, I would like to write much longer than that, but an hour done is far better than just intentions, and for me, real progress. The specific time may change as life changes, but think about when you are at your best. Pay attention to that productive time - use it for your best - it may mean reading with children, walking, cleaning - find your Einstein Hour and use it wisely. What is your Einstein Hour?

So, March accomplished.
April ahead.
Wonder what lessons April will offer?

Random Rambles, Part Two

I planted zinnias from seed last spring in the basement. The seeds were saved from our son's yard, collected in the fall. Finally, they are blooming like crazy in pots and in the garden. Bright colors, scattered around the yard, or cut and stuck in a jar in the kitchen, they make a long-lasting arrangement (I stick the flowers in a jar - calling them an arrangement is a very loose term). I remember reading somewhere that zinnias were a favorite for the pioneer women. They would carry the seeds with them, grow the flowers outside their door, nurturing them for their cheerful colors and memories of home, creating a new home where they were.

We are having a blast reading aloud two books I found at the library. The End of the Beginning, and A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End, by Avi. He plays with words, creatively twisting them while he weaves a story about two unlikely characters, "a small snail and an even smaller ant." I love to hear our son giggle when he gets the plays on words. We laugh together, enjoying the light-hearted story.

The ant, Edward, teaches Avon, the snail, a song to sing while they are on their adventure.

 " "One of the better things about it," Edward pointed out, "is the fact that it can be sung from either end. I sing it from the beginning, and my father sings it from the end."
     "Can it be sung from the middle?"
     "Absolutely," said Edward. "That's how my mother always does it. As you can see, we are a family of individuals."
     "Ah, but at least you're all singing the same song," said Avon."
from The End of the Beginning

And, from the end of A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End,
"Avon found a new piece of paper and was about to start writing again when he sighed and said, "I have to admit my thoughts are still in a muddle."
     "Avon!" cried Edward. "That's exactly where a writer should be. After all, creatures generally have nothing to do with their beginnings. And it's not often they consider their ends. But in between there's all that muddle. The writer's job is to write about the muddle."
     "Are you saying," said Avon, "that since I'm always in a muddle..."
     "It proves you are a writer.""

Orange Glazed Carrots
adapted from Fix It and Forget It Lightly, by Phyllis Pelman Good

32 oz. pkg baby carrots (or thickly sliced)
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c orange juice
1 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Combine all ingredients except cornstarch and water in slow cooker.
Cook on low 4 - 6 hours, or until carrots are done to your liking. For my slow-cooker, I have to turn it to high for a couple of the hours.
In small bowl, stir together cornstarch and water until smooth. Add to carrots, cook a few minutes until sauce thickens.





Here's to our in-the-muddle days!

What to Spend

"THE BEST THING TO SPEND ON CHILDREN IS YOUR TIME."

My sister-in-law had this quote as a cross-stitch on her wall. Several years ahead of us in the child raising years, she lived these words. She home-schooled before it was a thing, simply because it allowed her to spend more time with her two children and it enabled them to work together, learn together, be together.  I attempted to follow that example.

I made up a pattern, designed the cross-stitch, and it sat in my project pile for years. I wanted to put it on my wall, just like she had it. I have to admit (with a grimace), that I think it is still downstairs in a project box, moved from house to house, how many times? I am not even going to go look.

At this point, I wish I could say that I didn't spend the time to make that cross-stitch because I was too busy spending time with my kids. Maybe, maybe not. But it has helped me keep a focus on priorities. It is not all the things that make a rich life. It is time, together.

  More important than putting that cross-stitch on my wall, it is important to write those words on my heart, making them come alive in my life, and playing them out in our children's days.

"Mom, will you play a game with me?"

"I'm busy doing [this]. Why don't you go play the Wii for awhile?"

What good mother would ever say that? Ahem... I don't want their memories of me to be of my back, turned toward some busy project. I want their memories to be of my face, available to listen and spend the time with them that they need. Balance is important here, too, though. One of our sons would take all my 24/7s if he could. Obviously there has to be a line.

Having this quote speaking in my head, reminding me of my choices and priorities, helps me keep my focus less on stuff and more on time, all the minutes and moments with this family God has given us.

Halcyon

My one word theme for 2013 is quiet. I meant to write more about it, delving deeper into various meanings, but this past month I have felt, well, quiet. Haven't posted as much as usual. Not sure exactly why, but my excuse is practicing quiet.

When I think of my ideal quiet day, I think of the beach. The beach, however, is not a quiet place: waves pound on the shore, wind roars across the sand, seagulls screech, sand blasts against your face, your clothes are blustered and hair whipped by the wind. I had to laugh when I thought of it that way. Why do I think of the beach as a quiet place? Perhaps because it marks some of my favorite get-away destinations. Visits with families who had a beach house gave us moms time to chat and breathe while we kept a quiet eye on the kids. House-sitting opportunities at a beach house gave us the luxury of living in a place we could never afford. There are memories of beach-side hotels that offered pleasant retreats for my husband and I. Visits with distant family meant beach trips in Hawaii and the Gulf of Mexico. One house where we lived was close enough to the beach to take frequent afternoon trips for the kids to play in the water and the sand. Even with the wind howling, the waves crashing and the seagulls screaming for our food, beach days were quiet days.

At one beach house where we visited friends, a storm moved in. The tides were predicted extremely high, swallowing the sand, up to the low brick walls protecting the patios. Over the afternoon we watched the ocean turn from blue to green to gray to violet to indigo to navy blue to black, and the storm was on us. A quiet afternoon? Not in the forces of weather, but the kids all played outside as long as they could, tossing the tennis ball into the water and watching for the waves to toss it back, their sweatshirts wet in the cold spray.

From our house where we lived in the central California coast area, we would drive to the Pacific Coast Highway, turn north, and travel about thirty minutes to Pismo Beach. It was a great kids' beach. A long, slow, gradual slope, waves that came in gently at low tide, hard-packed sand perfect for playing and building. We loved to go mid-week, a benefit of home teaching, after the morning school work was done, a quick lunch packed, and often, the beach was practically deserted.

One drive, I don't remember why, we turned a different route off the Pacific Coast Highway, left on a street named Halcyon. At that point, we were still on the bluffs, the homes high, overlooking the coastline. After a block or so, the road appeared to drop out from underneath us. It plummeted, seemingly straight down for several hundred feet. The kids all screeched, some in panic, some in delight, like on a roller coaster ride. (I admit, other times when we drove this route, I would crest the top of the hill and let off quickly on the gas pedal to create a greater feeling of anti-gravity and increase the fun.) The road dropped quickly to sea level, to fields of strawberries, lettuce and broccoli, crops that flourished year-round in that perfect sea climate. Never too hot, never too cold, ideal for growing.

Halcyon looped across the green fields and joined the road that took us along the coast to the section of beach we liked. The dictionary says the word halcyon is from the name of a legendary bird that "had a peaceful, calming influence on the sea at the time of the winter solstice." The afternoons at the beach created for us a calming influence. A time to relax and play, to enjoy being with each other. I would take a book, but rarely read it, choosing instead to gaze at the waves and the kids playing together, and watch for the occasional dolphin or sea lion. We loved to go in the winter when the beach was pretty much guaranteed to be empty. The water was too cold to swim, but they would play, tossing a football or frisbee. Or, they would build sand creatures or castles. Or sit and enjoy the scenery, no responsibilities, nothing to do but relax. Or collect seashells. Or bury each other in the sand and take silly photos.

"Halcyon days," is a phrase from literature and music, denoting nostalgia and remembrance. Our granddaughter, when she was little, knew to go to her "happy place" when something frightened her. We were at a lively restaurant with animated animals displayed in the jungle scenery. When the elephant above our table trumpeted, she quickly retreated into her happy place, her eyes shut tight, humming a little song to herself. Then she cried and a kind waitress let us move to a table less populated with four legged creatures. For me, the beach is my happy place, a place where the tranquility and beauty soak into my soul, creating a sense of deep quiet.

When I realized, however, that the beach is really not a quiet place, I also realized that the sense of quiet can be achieved in the middle of a normal day's chaos. The noise of a normal household, the clashing personalities, the challenges of learning and growth, the demands of duty and responsibility all create wear and tear, like the waves pounding out their rhythm on the ever-changing sand. Even here, there is calm and beauty and peace and halcyon days.

We do not live near the beach anymore.  I am learning that a state of quiet is from within - not a result of idyllic external circumstances. It is rooted in a tranquil heart. At any time I can choose to retreat to my quiet place, a place of trust and love and being loved and grace and being deeply grateful. There, always, there is quiet. My biggest surprise in understanding quiet is that it is not about stillness or quantity of words or volume of sound. There is an energy in quiet, like the ocean waves surging deep below the surface, powerful. And I still have much to learn about quiet.

Re-Focus

This week's Friday Five word was Focus. I had trouble focusing this week. As evidenced by the miscellaneous piles mounded on my desk. Too many projects going at once. Starting too many new projects. Scrambling to finish old projects so I can move on to the new projects. A mountain of library books to read. I realized something, they are all non-fiction: gardening, dog training, cookbooks, writing skills, motivational, home decorating, local hikes. No wonder I am having trouble reading them all. When I read that word, "focus," my first thought was the eye of a fly. You've seen them, I'm sure, magnified pictures of the eyeball of a fly with its thousands of mini-eyes looking everywhere. Which is why it is so hard to smash them with a fly swatter. See, even my writing is all over the place this week, attempting to look everywhere at once.

What to do about it? How to focus in on what I should be doing?

Start with the basics. These people, this house, this home. Cooking, cleaning, home teaching. Time with each individual. That pretty much fills my days.

I wrote before about the Pomodoro Technique. A method of short, timed, concentrated efforts. These are great, especially for those nagging jobs I just don't ever seem to get around to doing. Set the timer, focus for twenty-five minutes, get it done. Easy. Simple. But it takes the effort to set the timer and focus. It helps, knowing it is a short time. Okay, I'll give this twenty-five minutes. That's all. Makes if feel less overwhelming. More possible. There is a website, free information, lots of terrific ideas for help with priorities.

Last weekend, I filled a raised bed, planted seeds, moved two tomato plants and a nasturtium from pots. Here is the latest, today, my tiny lettuce seeds sprouting up. Still may be too late in the season to get away with producing anything from my small garden, but I am having fun - a race with the season.

My three favorite gardening books are:
Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew
Passionate Gardening, Good Advice For Challenging Climates, by Lauren Springer and Rob Proctor
and a new favorite (one of my many current library books) Gardening on a Shoestring, by Rob Proctor.
Do you have favorite gardening books?

Focus. An art. A skill. Like any art or skill, it takes practice, technique, learning, failure, attempts again. Over and over. Re-focus.

The Art of Copy (Part Two)

Yesterday, I wrote about the value of copying great works, in any field, in order to learn and practice to achieve a new skill. Today, here are more examples.

In the beginning of the Suzuki Violin Method, four essential points are given. The first is:

1. The child should listen to the reference recordings every day at home to develop musical sensitivity. Rapid progress depends on this listening.

The key to rapid progress is reproducing the sounds, tones and notes heard on the recording. The development of musical ability is in copying the recordings listened to daily. Also recommended are group lessons where the younger, newer students are mixed in with the older more advanced students. Again, opportunity is given to provide good examples for the younger students to copy. The same principles are applied in the Piano Method.

Years ago, when I was expecting our fourth baby, with three under age five, I inherited my aunt's drawing table and art supplies. Inspired by her pencil drawings, and wanting to follow in her steps, I took a drawing I loved from a favorite book, L'Abri, by Edith Schaeffer (drawing by Deirdre Ducker). 

I drew a grid over the drawing in the book, then very lightly drew a larger grid over my paper. I worked on it each day as the kids were napping: drawing, focusing on only what was isolated in each square. By closing off the visual of the drawing as a whole, and looking only at the details of each square, one by one, I was able to reproduce the drawing very closely. When finished, I erased the lightly drawn lines on my drawing, but left them in the book as is. 

At the time, because it was just a copy, I didn't frame it, and it sat in a pile of papers in the garage for years. When an artist friend and I were talking, I pulled it out, and she insisted on framing it, saying that any art is of great value, even if it is just a copy. Now, it hangs on our living room wall with other original art and prints.

In the Charlotte Mason Companion, by Karen Andreola, she delineates a technique of teaching called narration, or "retelling what has just been read", either aloud or written by the students. "Narration strengthens and challenges all the powers of the mind." As the child thinks about what was read or heard, s/he builds powers of concentration, memory, evaluation, interpretation, and comprehension. By synthesizing and articulating their thoughts about what they understood and telling back (spoken or written) what they heard or read, knowledge is assimilated and reproduced. Copied. While copying, the student "develops a style all his own," a concept which was also shared in the quote by Pablo Picasso, yesterday.

In my workout sessions, watching the DVD, I am copying the movements of athletes who are far beyond my abilities. I match their moves as accurately as I can, working and striving to develop my muscles and strength as they demonstrate. By setting my goals beyond what I am currently capable; by copying those with a level of fitness I am working towards, those goals become possible, achievable (eventually).

Why do we enjoy looking at magazine or catalog photos of rooms decorated with a certain style? We imagine copying them, duplicating the look in our own rooms. Also with clothing catalogs, we imagine ourselves looking like the models, which the designers, of course, know very well and choose their models accordingly.

Learning by copying, teaching by copying, are  both valid methods. Of course this does not imply infringing on copyright laws or claiming a copied work as original. As a learning tool, copying is worthwhile and productive, a step toward discovering your own voice and skills and abilities.

Can you think of other examples of learning by copying?

A Reading Mom

   On Saturday, as we were driving to pick up our son, we drove by a vacant schoolyard.  Out on the grassy playground, a mom and a little boy, probably two years old, were together.  The boy leaned against a walk-along plastic toy sit-on car, the type he would push with his feet. He was climbing on to it, trying to swing one leg over the seat. Close behind him stood his mom, one foot on the back of the little car, balancing it, ready to push him along once he got on.  What impressed  me, caught my attention, was the book she was holding open, reading, while her son played at her feet.  A busy mom, with a busy toddler, making the time for herself to read.
     I firmly believe that the best way to raise reading children is to:
1. read aloud to them, and
2. be a reader yourself.
    Let them see you reading and enjoying books.  Read and enjoy books together with them.

embarrassing, but I'm actually reading all these

    So far this year, our children are far out-reading me (and they finish their books).  The books I've been working on are slow, savor-them types, ones that I like to read, little by little.  Since some of them are library books, I have to finish those first to take them back on time.  Last week, I had to divide up the pages left on one of them, and figure how many pages to read each day.  I finished it on Friday, on target. Now, there are two more I'm finishing up before we leave on our trip next week.  And, a few others I'm still reading, interwoven as time allows.  The concept of reading one book at a time eludes me.

     On our trip, we'll be visiting our grandchildren.  I will be sure to sit and read with them, as many times as possible.

Mini-Books

I could go to the store and buy a little spiral notebook, but I like using something I've made myself, that is personal to me.
We learned to make these mini-books in our home teaching, and have used them for vocabulary words, multiplication tables, learning the presidents, etc. etc.
Now, I make them for my food journal: to write down everything I eat, calories, our exercise sessions, the water I drink, and progress when I reach certain weight-loss goals.
For this example, I'll use three pages, which yields a ten page mini-book.

I like to use colored papers. Fold them in half, cut along the fold.

Fold in half again, insert together, in two separate piles.

Mark one inch from each edge, on the fold.

Cut one pile from the edge to the mark from each end, top and bottom, on the fold.  Cut the other pile between the marks, trimming just along the fold, from mark to mark.

Loosely fold the pieces with the edge cuts (not creasing) and tuck them inside the pieces with the center cut out.  Push it half-way through, then unfold, tucking the cut part over the center pieces, top and bottom.  Smooth out the folds. If necessary, trim edges to match.

Your mini-book is ready for - for whatever you want.  A letter to someone, project lists, book notes, favorite quotes, daily journal, menu ideas, party-planner, garden plans, sketches.....
What could you use one of these mini-books for?

This Moment

     Hit the floor running in the morning, and rush headlong through the day.  It's easy to do.  It takes effort to stop, pay attention, to notice the beauty moments and the young people filling our home - young people growing and changing faster than time itself.
     Boys and a daughter, gathered around the table, each working with their own schoolwork books, notebooks, computer, papers, pencils.

One dog snoring, the other crunching on her rawhide bone.  The cat meowing at the back door, "Let me out," and he just came in two minutes ago, meowing outside the door.

The phone rings.  A lady machine wants to clean our air ducts.  I could stay on the line and wait to talk to a real person to tell them we're on the no-call list.  Or, just hang up.  The timer goes off.  The rice is done, let it sit for five minutes.  The gardeners arrive, get the cat  back inside, quiet the dogs from barking.  There are "strangers" in the yard, can't blame them, but we did tell them to stop barking.  The washer and the dryer hum, someone's buckles clang in the dryer. Write lists: packing plans for a trip, for the son's next essay ideas, for another son's multiplication practice.  Think of an item for the grocery list, jot it down. Sirens off in the distance, someone having an un-ordinary day.  A question, "What does this assignment want me to do? I can't figure it out."  Read the computer page, try to understand, together.  Timer goes off again,  move the rice off the stove.  My planner sits open with today's list and space to write in more as it comes up.  Another cup of coffee, get out the creamer.  Something is dripping in the refrigerator.  The package of chicken is leaking down through two shelves. Gross. Add clean the refrigerator to the list (needed to be done, anyway).  And it's not even the middle of the morning.
     This moment. It is all we have. An ordinary morning, nothing spectacular. Or, is it?
     Being together.  Being home.  Being home together.  This is one of the key reasons we teach the kids at home.  To be together.  To be with them in the myriad light bulb moments.  Not just as they learn to crawl and walk and talk, but when they see multiplication as a shortcut to adding, or the construction of an essay with form and pattern, or a tough solution becomes clear.  "Oh, I see!"

     There are the spectacular moments.  Our son and his wife are visiting the Grand Canyon this week.  That is spectacular.  There is art in finding the spectacular in the common, ordinary everyday. Ann Voskamp, in One Thousand Gifts,  A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, does a beautiful, sometimes heart-breaking job of delineating the ordinary beauty in a day, even under painful circumstances. She is willing to face the tough questions head-on and look, really look, at life, and with vulnerability, stand her claim that grace is always there.  With a heart open to see the grace, we will find it.
     Her book is number nine on the New York Bestseller List this week. As she wrote her own list of one thousand gifts, and wrote her journey into a book, I don't imagine she had any idea how hungry the world would be for her message of beauty.  Her words, sometimes difficult words, of light shining into dark days.  Her challenge to live fully among the dishes and the messes and the clamor and the conflicts. The blessings she discovered along the way.

     This moment.  It is full and rich, if we have the eyes and the heart to see it, really see it. Does our heart have eyes?  I think so.  How we perceive, is skewed by our heart - with bitterness and regret and resentment, or with hope and love and acceptance. We can learn to perceive with love and grace, find the gifts and the spectacular in any moment. To see with our hearts, the beauty in this moment.