Ordinary Inbetween

"It's not the big things, but the ordinary in between and maybe this is not the time at all to be waiting for any better reason to be glad that I'm alive at all." -Late Tuesday

For what it's worth, I feel like I've always had an appreciation of the little things. I find joy in the little things. Among these little things are hand written letters, a favorite song on the radio, a familiar voice on the phone, watching coffee pour from the french press, the way the sun sets warmly over the trees and hills, and laughter at any age. I think when I encounter something so small yet so lovely, my heart tells me to stop and acknowledge what is right in front of me. I've learned to make time for these moments in my day and if I don't, I keep going about my day feeling like I missed out. If I see the sun pouring through the window in a certain way and happen to have my camera, but move on without taking the picture, I bum myself out. If I pass a sweet chalk drawing on the sidewalk and just walk by without looking to see what it was, I'll wish I had.

The more I stop for these moments, because they really are just moments, the more joy I find in life. I have a ball tromping through the leaves, taking pictures of things that make me smile, swinging in the park, and just enjoying life in general. It's been fun to bring my camera with me out and about. I've always loved taking pictures, but for years, I was that girl that would always have my camera with me and never use it. It's amazing the difference it makes when I actually use it. Who would have thought? Just having my camera with me makes me look at the world different. I look at everything or everyone as the possibility of a great shot. I look around more. In Seattle, I used to walk twenty or thirty minutes to school with my ipod in and just making sure I wasn't going to trip and hardly making time for random conversation, which has every possibility of being hilarious and a good story later by the way :) I would hardly engage with people I passed on the street. Window face was as far as I got, haha. Now, I look at the world different and look around more, engage more. The more I actually see, the more beauty I find in the people and places I go. I find joy in the ordinary in between and I like that, because life is beautiful in the most extraordinarily ordinary ways.

"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things...I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind." -Leo Buscaglia

Love note on a love bug?

No one can resist the swings

I can't resist the swings, either.

To the unknown..