Joy 7

Yesterday was something of a blur.  But you know something?  It was a pleasant blur.  Normally the fact of running from thing to thing would leave me feeling depleted.  But the task of looking for and documenting moments of joy lightens that load considerably.  It makes me approach things differently.  Interesting.

I could have posted many things for yesterday, as a result.  A picture of a free Starbucks frappucino--a luxury I don't indulge in very often but that came at JUST the right moment yesterday.  An unexpected snowstorm.  Meeting a new colleague and friend for lunch.  Making dinner.  A hot bath before bed.

But here was the best thing:

My mom sent down the next installment of her "Family Creative Workshop" collection.  These things tell you how to do everything from macrame to making your own wine to making burlap underwear.

Okay, maybe not that last thing.

But I can't wait to page through these things.  I LOVE stuff like this.  Deep, deep anticipatory joy.

She also sent a bunch of story books from my childhood for the girls (can I tell you, at this point, she has literally send hundreds of books to them from my childhood?  Totally remarkable).  But I absconded with this one almost immediately:

Yes, the McCall's Giant Golden Make-It Book, from the fifties, I think.  I don't think I can tell you how awesome this thing is, but I will try, briefly.  Because I have to go to Costco.  Because we are out of food.

First,

it just has fun things to do, like how to make washcloth animals.  Which I did immediately, to get the girls into bath.  Awesome.

And, there are the usual hilarious gender splits, where the girls get to learn tatting and how to make an apron for mother, while the boys, who look to be about eight, get to paint furniture (?!?), use turpentine (?!?), and handle saws (?!?) in making their own playhouses (?!?).

I'm tempted to make a comment about how kids today are a bunch of wussy namby-pambies, but I know that would probably be incorrect, and conceal a whole bunch of unfortunate things about how the 50s went down.  Come to think of it, I kind of wrote my dissertation about that.

Finally, I leave you with this little video.  I took Nolie to the doctor in the morning, thinking she had a sinus infection (she doesn't--just seasonal allergies, like her mama).  My kids are in the habit of acting deathly ill until we get into the doctor's office, at which point they act like this:

It makes it very hard to explain to the doctor that they really are sick.  Thank you, children.