Simple Joys

Welcome to Simple Joys on Chief 187™Chatter.

In the past week I have had to work extra hard to find the Simple Joys in my daily live as an illness has had a grip on my family, an ugly one. It struck with a vengeance leaving me downed for the first time in a long time.

But while I had to work hard, I was able to find Simple Joys in my week.

I am becoming better at sifting through the difficult, drifting atop the mire of the day, and seeking the Simple Joys that bring balance to my day.

Like any muscle Simple Joys takes work to strengthen, but the results give endless pleasure.

Now, without further ado, is this week’s Simple Joys.

Timing. The illness entered our home on Saturday night when our middle boy fell to the stomach virus. By Sunday he was feeling himself and we thought we were safe.

Tuesday night our daughter came down with the same sickness. Normally I’d be home alone with the children as my husband is in the final stages of earning his Master’s Degree, and Tuesdays are class night, but as luck would have it his class was canceled.

We were able to work in tandem to care for our daughter, bathe her, clean the mess, run the laundry, and keep an eye on our boys, whereas I doing it alone would have been most overwhelming.

Nobody wants a sick child, but if we had to have one the Simple Joy was totally having my husband home to help in the situation.

Vision Therapy. My eldest son has embarked on vision therapy that is helping to correct the way his brain visualizes things with his eyes.

When we went to learn the third exercise on Wednesday the team who works with him checked his progress and were very pleased. They could tell he was doing his exercises properly and they were yielding success already!

The combination of having my son be responsible to do his exercises daily and the wherewithal to do them properly to fix his situation was a Simple Joy that parents like me long to experience.

Fantasia. My daughter, as I reported last week, was shown and adored the Toy Story movies we own on VHS. Rather than fast forward through all of the many previews, she watches them delightedly while waiting for the feature to start.

Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 are advertised and I recalled that long ago my husband and I had purchased the movies for our collection long before we had children.

I took the films out last week, played them for my children, and they truly liked them! The music is fantastic, the animation superb, and the experience a Simple Joy from start to finish!

Sleep. By week’s end I had succumbed to the illness that battered around our home. My saintly husband tended to me and took the day off of work to allow me to rest and take care of our brood. I didn’t even have the strength to argue so I simply relented.

I slept. I woke up and slept again. I slept so much I thought I might have Mono! But, alas, I was just run down, warn out, and tired.

Sleeping during the day, uninterruptedly, and then, because I had to, sleeping some more, is a Simple Joy brought on by a heinous illness, but, quite frankly, was a Simple Joy nonetheless!

Super Bowl Sunday. I could write that it was a brilliant day because we love good, tight games and this year’s definitely delivered.

I could also remind you that we rooted for the Giants and that would be a reason to list Super Bowl XLVI as a Simple Joy.

But my reasoning is much more homegrown and provincial. While endless pre-game coverage was on the television, we’d exhausted our time outside in the cold riding bikes and playing, I decided it was time for the children to use me as their model and give me a make-over!

I brought out hair brushes, lipsticks, eye shadows, and make-up brushes. My nine-year-old boy was uninterested, but my five-year old and two-year old were ecstatic! They tugged at my hair, tried different ponytails, and started over again and again.

My daughter was far more interested in giving herself a make-over which is why I brought down make-up remover cloths!

My son, on the other hand, my true artist, was intrigued and couldn’t wait to learn how to apply the shadows. I explained the theory of what color was supposed to go where on the eyes. He listened and set to work.

The first combination was dark, purple, and smoky. Afterwards we cleared my eyes and worked with more neutral colors. He did a fantastic job!

We passed a couple of hours playing “salon”, laughed, and truly enjoyed our pre-game Super Bowl Sunday. Simple Joys abounded!

Mid-winter, cold temperatures, little sunlight, and illness are enough to stop one in their tracks and give up.

But finding the Simple Joys in any and every situation can lead to a forward momentum that gives you strength to keep moving forward, hold on to optimism, and keep you smiling.

After all, there is less than six weeks left of official winter, it has been a relatively mild winter temperature-wise, the sunlight is getting longer every day, and illnesses will not last forever!

Find the Simple Joys in your life and every season, every day can be a pleasurable one!

Please join me tomorrow for a Valentine's Day Gift Guide on Chief 187™Chatter.