We Missed a Million Views

Although I had no plan to stop, I never dreamed I'd still be blogging daily when I started this blog on August 10, 2010.

We celebrated so many "view: milestones: the first, the first time we reached ten views in a day, twenty-five total, fifty total, one hundred total, five hundred, a thousand, almost five hundred thousand, and on our way to a million total views.

A million! Think of it! We couldn't wait to watch the BryonySeries blog turn to one million!

And we missed it.

I was checking the stats for a completely unrelated reason and found that, somewhere in this blur of an autumn, the BryonySeries blog reached a million views.

Yep, we missed the big milestone.

Now, I'm sure some (many) of these views are bots. 

But judging by the analytics, all the views are not bots.

And it's heartening to know that, even in a stretch of some very challenging few years, we're still doing somethings right - and we're doing them consistently.

That's a nice slice of good news for the last day of the calendar year called 2024.

Joy in the Details

When walking through Walmart with Rebekah one day, I reiterated my standard, "No gifts, no Mother's Day brunch" tagline I utter every year around this time.

My reasoning is that money is tight, everyone works hard, and we do so much for each other the rest of the year. So my Mother's Day wish is that we all rest.

It didn't turn out that way, but that's OK and not the topic of this post.

Now as we're walking through the store, Rebekah said she was planning to get me a pop-up card for Mother's Day.

If you're as old as I am, a "pop-up card" is one where a figure unfolds and stands when you open the card.

But the pop-up card Rebekah had in mind resembles a diorama and the miniature shadow boxes my godmother used to make and sell.

We walked past one such display, and I fell in love with one of the cards, getting close to it and examining all its intricacies. 

Rebekah immediately scooped it up and set it in the card. She joked to people over the next few weeks on how I picked out my Mother's Day card.

Six photos of the details follows.

So here's the point of the post.

We're always cautioned not to miss the forest for the trees. But sometimes each tree is breathtakingly lovely. And we forget to see the trees for the forest.

In a day of challenges, we might not notice pockets of beauty and joy.

So I hope you see them today and that they bring a touch of magic to your life.

Three Ways to be Happy for Five Minutes

Lots of people are having a great day today.

And, most likely, lots of people are not.

The reasons can be circumstantial, health issues of any kind, or simply being in a state of unhappiness that defies explanations.

There's a lot of talk these days about about "being mindful" and "being in the moment," but some moments aren't that terrific, honestly.

But if you're not feeling well or if you are feeling stressed or otherwise not on top of the world today, take five minutes and apply a slogan that old people like me were taught in the old days in regards to crossing railway tracks.

Stop.

Look.

Listen.

I'm really not being silly. Just do it.

Now maybe when you stop and look and listen, you don't like what you see and here. Let's say, for instance, you see a messy house and hear the kids bickering. 

But could it also mean noticing you have a home with plenty of possessions that need straightening and cleaning (many people don't any possessions or a home) and a house full of life (even though living on an island "sounds" like a good idea right now).

Every coin has two sides, even if the second side is blank. 

On Sunday morning, after treating myself to sleeping in, I settled at the computer to get some work (on deadline) done, only to find that, for the second day in a row, I've had to restart the computer. 

I had no choice but to stop. So I figured, instead of getting annoyed, I could look and listen.

Well, my desk is FULL of paperwork that needs sorting, a water bottle, reheated coffee from yesterday, and my cell phone.

The paperwork shows I have plenty of stories to write. I have the financial means of buying water bottles as well as a nice working refrigerator/freezer to keep the bottles frosty cold (the way I like them).

Drinking yesterday's coffee means I have people who love me so much that they brought me a nice Americano late yesterday before I could drink it all.

And they bought it from a place that makes coffee so well, the texture and flavor doesn't break down in the microwave (and I have a working microwave that, within seconds, heats coffee to the temperature I prefer).

My phones are handpicked by Timothy because he understands my job duties and selects phones to match. The last phone I bought with my own money was twenty years ago. If my phone malfuctions, Timothy calls the insurance company, Timothy gets the new phone in, Timothy transfers all my data and pictures at a time that is conveniennt to me, too. 

He does all this voluntarily.

If the computer doens't boot up (it eventually did, which is how I'm writing this blog), I have a laptop, my daughter has a laptop, my two sons each have a laptop, and my daughter also has a desktop. So it's not the end of the world (or my job) if the computer I WANT to use in this moment doesn't boot up).

Note: I finally did have to call on Rebekah for help.

The sun is shining through my window, the birds are tweeting up a storm, and a cat is sleeping on my bed. So even as I'm working, I'm surrounding by good weather and life.

I'm really not trying to be all pollyanish here.

Taking five minutes won't change the fact that the house still has to be cleaned, the kids still have to be discplined, and the cat hair will still have to be brushed away. If you have a migraine, that's probably still there, and if you have knee paiin, that probably hasn't gone away.

Stories don't write themselves (I wish!), and if I want to keep myself in water bottles and dark roast coffee, well, I have to write the stories, even in those moments when I'm tired or uninspired or distracted or too busy, or...well, fill in the blanks.

But by taking five minutes to stop and look and listen, you hit "pause" on the stress and mentally refresh yourself to tackle those challenges.

And, for just five minutes, perhaps you can feel a twinge of happiness, however fleeting and transient.

And, perhaps, in those moments, you feel a whisper of hope to help pull you through the rest.

Have a most blessed day.

BryonySeries Throwback Thursday: Joy vs. Misery

Monday, January 12, 2015

Joy vs. Misery

On New Calendar Christmas morning (December 25) over a cup of coffee, our pastor (who is 82 going on 40) made a comment about how his Christmas wish is for us to always choose joy over misery.

One member of our small church, who has been in therapy for years for depression, said, "Nooo, we're not getting into this."

But Fr. Boris continued," People often don't realize that they have a choice," and then he quoted, "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life."

(Deuteronomy 30:19)

Then I said, "I think people often don't realize they have a choice because they confuse joy with happiness."

And Fr. Boris looked at me and grinned.

I have a writely friend who calls me an eternal optimist, to which I respond that I simply refuse to be miserable. While it's true that circumstances have occured in life that have, indeed, robbed me of that joy, those circumstances hae never done so without my permission, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. Once I realize it, my first job, before I work on the problem, is to fix my attitude on the inside. A joyful spirit is a better problem-solver than a miserable one.

Joy is not happiness. And misery is not unhappiness.

Happiness is transitory, an elated feeling when something goes well in our lives or when others connect well with us. The opposite is true about unhappiness. Joy and misery are independent of life circumstances or our relationships.

I once read that if one travels downward in an ocean, one will eventually reach a place of complete serenity, where any turbulance that may be above cannot reach it. I believe all of us have, inside, a similar place we can cultivate, a place of serenity and, yes, joy.

Looking at life through rose-colored glasses is not wise, but neither should we view it through lenses of smoky gray. Rather, I choose spectacles of faith and the confidence they are backed with a guarantee of love from its Maker.

We cannot always choose our circumstances and whether or not so and so likes us. We can not prevent all troubles, all unhappiness. But we can build a strong ship that will sail navigate them.

And these are my Monday morning musings as I embark upon another work week...