Recently, Brian and I had a day planned to celebrate our anniversary. We were both looking forward to spending a day together. As luck would have it, the day started imploding the night before. A work emergency threatened to spill over into the next day. (Which it did.) At that point, a partial day was still going to be an option. Sunday morning, the second event occurred which pulled me away for a family medical emergency.
After reconvening at home, the day seemed to be a complete bust. Brian went about his mowing and I proceeded to clean the grill. And feel quite sorry for myself. After all, it isn’t often that we try and plan a day just for us.
As I was cleaning, I was contemplating my next blog post. As is usual in my head, my thoughts took a meandering path. If I was blogging about littles, was there any little thing that could be salvaged from this day?
Mid swipe, I put my cleaning rag down and headed to the front yard where I suggested a modified version of our planned day. (It was already 5:00 p.m.)
Since our planned day included a kayaking trip and time on the river, why couldn’t we just drive as far as we could, hike the rest of the way in and spend the evening swimming? The little version. No kayaks, no 4 wheeler, no truck required.
Brian looked at his watch, looked at me, looked around the yard and said one word, “seriously?”
Twenty minutes later we were on our way.
We proceeded to spend a wonderful evening swimming and floating in the river.
At dusk, we hiked out and headed home.
If we hadn’t been willing to look for the little thing that could be salvaged, we would have missed a wonderful opportunity to spend time together.
It is so easy to be focused on the big, splashy thing. The big, splashy vacation that our neighbor took, the big, splashy toy that we really want. While those things can be nice, they require a lot more in terms of precious resources. Namely time and money.
But within our grasp is the little thing. The little evening swimming. The little evening going out for ice-cream. Little things are like hidden gems. They aren’t big. They aren’t splashy. But they are so much more attainable in terms of precious resources. Look for the little things. And let them bring some sparkle to your life.
Beautiful Micki! Jim and I just watched the movie of Mr Rogers. Wont you be my Neighbor. A beautiful movie with a lesson to slow down, value life and accept those around you for who they are. The little people (kids) in this case. One thing that struck me from the movie was the speed or bombardment of life around us vying and competing for our time and attention. Mr. Rogers would say that “deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.”
You salvaged your day with Brian by recognizing what you could do, rather than giving up because of what you couldn’t do. How beautiful. Thank you for sharing. A simple lesson for all of us.
Wow! Thank you so much for the wonderful comment!
It is a hard lesson to remember sometimes.
Have a great day!
Enjoyed reading your blog. I am very impressed with your talent. Congratulations.
Thanks so much!