Prairie Dawn (yes, the one from Sesame Street) sings a song I’ve always loved about her belief in the power of little things. Her examples are honeycomb, spiderwebs, and starfish.

The pace of our lives remains blistering. It’s JF’s busy time at work and he’s exhausted from travelling to head office in Toronto and back. I’m trying to get used to this whole nine to five thing. And we can’t seem to keep ourselves from chipping away at house renos every night.

But, optimist that I am, I continue to find heaps of joy in things like perfect donuts from the Elmvale bakery, clean sheets out of the dryer, and colourful tea towels.

One of the best compliments I ever got was from my childhood taxi driver, Carol. She drove my sister Alicia and I to elementary school every day. Not because we had money (I wore hand-me-downs from my cousin Anne-Marie until I was 14) but because we lived so far in the boonies there was no reason to send a bus.

Anyway, Carol was obese, wrinkly, and had platinum blonde hair of dubious authenticity in with neon pink curly ribbons coming out of it. She was also, I thought, one of the kindest people in the universe. When I was 11, she told me I had the greatest capacity for seeing beauty of anyone she had ever met. I guess that’s kind of questionable coming from a woman with plastic hair, but I felt pretty special.

At that age, I collected purple rocks, walked through woods alone to admire fall colours, and sighed with pleasure at the sight of an open peony. I also did dumb things like keep dead leaves I’d seen twirling in the wind and practice making perfect impressions of lipstick on Kleenex. I was pretty cool.

Things haven’t changed much. I picked these around Elise & Roger’s house a few weeks ago.

I have been using all my powers for admiring loveliness lately. I’ve needed them to spot the potential in my patchy bathroom walls and see through the stained carpet on my 2^nd floor.  I’ve also used them to remember and appreciate the many small blessings in my life.

Sunflowers + fresh picked apples + sunrises over canola fields = happiness.