Attend to Little Things

I've been reading up on attention today. Doing a little studying about ADHD for some continuing education. And it's helped me focus a little bit on something I couldn't quite figure out--why this blog has meant so much to me.

I mean, it's just a blog.

It's not a friend, not a vacation, not really even a hobby.

But somehow it's helped me to focus my attention on the little things in my life. To attend to tiny moments that would otherwise fly by and not be remembered or told. Something about blogging makes me be a better observer of my own life.

Which has made me much happier.

Although right now, for some reason, I'm a bit blue. Maybe it's my anticipation of moving soon. Although it's just across the street, I feel guilty about the changes we make so often to Flanna's life. Or maybe it's because every time I visit family, I get a glimpse of the wonder it might be to live near them and to truly be a part of their life, rather than just visiting here and there.

That's the scary part of paying attention. You get to notice happy stuff, and you also get to notice areas where your life just isn't measuring up. But hopefully that leads to action, and change for the good. Or at least contemplation of action.

Annnyway.... here are some of the little things that I actually (miracle of all miracles!) paid attention to last week, and was lucky enough to be able to document with my camera, as well!

Flanna and I took a walk to the creek, and picked some Queen Anne's lace and Zinnias for Grammie's table.

My friend Lauren got married, and her "something blue" was her shoes!

My hubby was all debonair for the wedding, and our friends who are getting married in October helped me experience the wedding with fresh eyes...I remember the excitement and giddy energy!

Flannery wearing the medal her uncle Chris gave to her. She didn't want to take it off.



the dogs enjoying some attention, and a toad we found near Poppa & Grammie's porch. He was big!

the way the sun hit the bounty from the garden




What helps you truly attend to little things in your life? Do you keep a journal, photograph, scrapbook? What about your life, if you pay close attention, do you wish you could change a bit?

Notice Opportunities

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work.
--Thomas A. Edison

For some reason, I made the naive decision to put together family tree information for Flannaberry for her baby book. I was thinking I would go back maybe 6 generations and draw it on a little chart like the cute tree you see in the photo. And then tuck the cute family tree into her baby book for posterity.

What I didn't expect was that I would be given tons of information on my family (and my husband's) dating back to the 1700s.

Yup, the 1700's.

So my little family tree chart might be expanding just a weeee bit.

Because I just can't take all this information that my mom and dad and my husband's grandmother have given me and just tuck it away in a file somewhere. All the lists of names and dates look like a bunch of hard work right now, but I'm trying to see them as an opportunity. (Thanks, Edison, for being so spot on in your advice.)

So, I've started entering all of our data into Ancestry.com's cool website. It's so easy that I'm really getting sucked in. I promise I won't become a genealogy freak, but seriously, I love all of the cool family names I'm discovering like Sultanah, Stony, Zella, & Silas. And I also love reading the little notes my dad took in the margins of the papers my parents sent me, and learning things like the fact that Robi's grandmother is 2 years 2 months 2 days older than her brother, who is 2 years 2 months 2 days older than their other sister. See, cool, right?

But goodness gracious, it's a lot of work to organize 4 branches of a family tree!

I'm throwing my overalls on and digging in, though. This really is an opportunity to bring my dad's hard work to fruition, and to be a storehouse of family memories for my daughter. So wish me luck as I roll up my sleeves!


Do you have any interesting branches in your family tree?