3 cheers for June.
And I mean that in all sorts of ways.
If you've been following my blog for the last months or so, you'll remember that I'm doing something a little different this year - instead of Multitude Mondays, I'm trying to find (and hopefully take a picture of) something every single day that I'm thankful for...something that brings me joy. It has been one of the most therapeutic things I've ever done and after reading the book 1000 Gifts, I'm realizing that it has also got to become a way of life, for me and my children. We're working on a thankful poster every month as a family too - writing things down on a poster on the fridge. My plan is to keep them all in a 12x12 album so we can go back and look at them.
Having said all that.....the month of May kicked my butt. There was some stuff going on at home, some bigger stuff going on at work and definitely some stuff going on in my head that, in hindsight....was all a test to see if I was going to let this "stuff" lead to bitterness and resentment in my heart. It easily could have. And it very nearly did. Out of the 31 days in May I think I may have managed to take 10 pictures and only document about half of those as Simple Joy days, but somehow Joy peeked through, Grace won out and I came out on this side of May with victory. Yay. Which brings me directly back to:
3 cheers for June.
Even seeing the word June pop up when I flipped the calendar page over felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It might have been that I could actually see a day in the near future that said "last day of school" or it might have been the holidays that are so close I think I can smell them....but honestly, I'm pretty sure it's the feel of victory and grace and the hope that there's more Joy to be had this year - that all is not lost because of the month of May.
And so, without further ado, here are my Simple Joys for June (days 152 - 158)
Simple Joy 152/365: 1st place in Gr. 6 boys' high jump (his age group). More than the 1st place though is that this son of mine...who isn't really crazy-passionate about very many things, Could Not Wait to get to school every day these past few weeks on the days he had high jump practice. This was something that really grabbed him and it was fun to watch him work hard at it!
Simple Joy 153/365: Girls night out - pedicures at Aloha, supper at Olive Garden and lots of fun.
Simple Joy 154/365: Kids that still colour in the van on road trips - remember these Velvet Doodle Art packages that always came with the crappy markers? Funny how badly I wanted to pull the van over and start colouring myself.
Simple Joy 155/365: Dinosaur bones: This past weekend the kids & I went to this museum:
The Canadian Fossil Discovery Center in Morden, Manitoba. We had been before and loved it and Saturday was the first dig of the new dig season. They bus you out to this dig site and give you paintbrushes and let you have at this beautiful shale field that is virtually full of bones...fish bones, mosasaur bones, plesiosaur bones....anything you'd ever hope to find in an area that used to be covered by a main seaway (odd to find it now in the landlocked center of Manitoba - but there you have it). This year we stayed on the dig site for about 4 hours and found lots and lots of fragments! No heads or tails though (they're digging currently on a site that just revealed I think 14 mosasaur vertebrae in a row so they're trying to expand that particular patch to see where the rest of it might be lying). Only one problem with the day.....guess who forgot her camera. Seriously. I had a friend there - I'm hoping she took at least one pic of someone in my family....and there was a couple there taking zillions of pictures (of my kids as well as other diggers) and the woman said she worked for Travel Manitoba so I'm hoping when she took my email address, she was serious about sending me photos of my kids.....we'll see. In lieu of actual photos....here's a quick one from the catalog of fossils on the website for the
CFDC. If you want to see more - check out their website.
Simple Joy 156/365: A bonfire and supper by camp iron. This particular meal we tried sandwiches with sub-meat and cheese in them, and also PB & J sandwiches toasted over the open fire. Yummy!
Simple Joy 157/365: My adventurous biker-boy. He's got himself a new helmet and a re-finished bike, some decals he bought on Ebay to spruce them both up, and somewhere along the way, this cautious, indoor-loving one became the one who spends the most time outside learning new tricks.
Simple Joy 158/365: This same boy wanted desperately to take apart and re-finish an actual bike. After only one session working on it - this is how far he got - frame emptied and washed, all the parts in a box and he's eyeing my spray paint downstairs. LOVE his vision!
Oh....and as part of this joy: I have to say again, I love the MCC store! I took Cale there hunting for a bike with at least good bones so he could try taking it apart.
Here's the conversation as it took place in the warehouse.
Me: I'm looking for a bike to fix up and I'd like to spend around $5.
Warehouse guy (after we found one we were OK with): We usually ask for $10 for this quality.
Me: OK. $10's fine.
Warehouse guy: Oh wait...that back tire's completely flat. How about $8.
Me: Sure. $8's fine....I'll have to go inside (the main store building) to pay with Debit.
Warehouse guy: I guess....we only take cash back here.
Me (digging through my wallet): I have $7 cash. If you'd take $7 for it, I can pay you right here.
Warehouse guy: Sure....$7's fine. Thanks.
Strange but true.
As is most of my life :)
Hunt for Joy.
Cathy
