Five whole dollars a story

I've been thinking of a phrase from one of my favorite movies, Little Women, you know, the one with Wynona Ryder as Jo. (If you don't know the version I mean, you should go find out!)

The sisters are in their attic dressed up as men and pretending to be their favorite characters from different Dickensian novels. As they're discussing the affairs of the world (their world), the aspiring writer, Jo, says, "did you know that down at the paper they pay five dollars for a story? Five whole dollars! Why, I have at least a dozen stories in my head right now!"

That's exactly how I feel.

There's so much that I want to share with you but real life necessitates real food. I had a busy weekend (besides the grocery shopping). Firstly, Saturday morning, I headed off to the family tea room to enjoy a pot luck brunch with other ladies from my church. There was a thought provoking devotional that hit on a few of the ideas which have been forming in my head already. One of which was, if I am going to Blog, I want to be encouraging, inspiring, possibly amusing and hopefully genuine. I have had the slight temptation to cast around me for something, anything, to bring for "show and tell" here. What I want to do instead, is to try and share what I see and hear and think as I'm going along through life. Simple Pleasures, yes, indeed! In other words, this is a challenge for me to stay wide eyed to the present and to enjoy where I am.

Besides, looking at what's good around me helps to put a joyful skip in my step. Especially when I, say, clean bathrooms, do the laundry and try not to panic that the dirty dishes apparently are breeding like rabbits behind my back. (All of which I've been doing this very weekend since my last post.) Even better yet, is the thought of not forgetting that God is with me and to be the kind of girl who is truly present to the person she's with at the moment.

Well then, Sunday, we went to church and then enjoyed "coffee hour". After, we arranged a date for our dog (as my sister aptly said, "how sordid") and finally, I collapsed in my favorite sunny spot in the living room to hang out with Tom. We spent an incredibly peaceful and quiet afternoon talking about this and that and dreaming about house renovations. One of these days I'll get around to taking a picture of my special spot but in the meantime, while I was quiet, I was appreciating the view from where I was and the glow of the different colors in the room.

Now, dear reader, if you would please humour me for a moment. There is something that is passing strange that I wanted to show you.

Yes! Grass! Green grass!

Now, if you would do me a small favor and click on the following link and enlarge the image that is there and take a good, sweet look at it and then return back here, please.

This is the LINK! 

That is exactly what Vermont is supposed to look like right now and Washington D.C. is buried in an historic amount of snow.

At least it's still properly frigidly cold!

Wishing you much joy in the moment,

Katy Noelle

P.S.  The subject of being in the moment has come up several times this weekend. Then, this morning, I finally had a chance to visit Elspeth Thompson's site. At the end, was the most beautiful (and brief) poem that expressed it all perfectly. Instead of copying her, here is the link to that post. Off the Rails