In lieu of a Thursday post....

I couldn't make my browser work well enough to grab their button.  Click on the link to "Like Mother, Like Daughter" in the sidebar.  Because I couldn't grab their button, this is being posted today instead of Thursday.  This is how great a webmistress I am.  Just call me Nell Quickly.

LMLD has such a good idea going on--sort of the fostering of the virtue of contentment with visual aids.  It's a valuable fostering, because getting up with feverish, croupy, and unreasonable toddlers at 4am does not inspire contentment on its own.  She makes a sweet (albeit runny-nosed) picture, though, doesn't she?

As I understand it the idea at LMLD is to find the pretty, happy, funny, real parts of our own homes and enjoy them.  Or at least notice them, for longer than it takes to clean them up.

Because I mean, I'm no decorator, and I don't naturally even remember to hang up pictures, but it occured to me this morning there were some nice corners in my new house that weren't just put there by the contractor.

Big sister loving on little brother is one such thing.

Even if we have to forbid the kissing because of the aforementioned croupy feverishness.

And this elephant.  It came back from Africa with Baba, and we like it a lot.

And this angel.  (Remember it, Aunt Kenny?)

And these angels.

And the quilt that Grandma had the foresight to make in Texas colors, with stars.  How smart was that?  It makes my boys room looked like I actually decorated it, when in fact I just hung some things up.

It's amazing what a few pictures can do for a hard morning.  See, I don't do well when forced to wake up before my time.  And you can't very well pull the "well, they just have to learn to sleep alone" thing when the kids are sick, can you?  (I can't even pull it when they're well, and they seem to be learning to sleep alone just fine.)  But look at this little foot, and I defy you to not have a good morning even if it DOES involve cleaning up potty training mistakes, waiting for the security company guy to turn on the alarm system, doing laundry because nobody has underpants, and mixing up what we are optimistically calling "medicine juice".

Some things are just rewarding.

Other things, you thank God for allowing you to have remembered.  (Do we have any baby Motrin?  Do we have that one cough syrup that actually works without the harmful stuff in it?  Yes, we do.  Thank You, Lord.)

Still other things are comfortable and pleasant through sheer repetition.  Why is it nice to get a newspaper?  Because it comes every day, that's why.

This is yet another of my nice corners.  Books were prettier back in the day.

I have... eclectic shelves.

Do the leaves on this tree remind you of the star-shaped leaves in "The Land Before Time"?  The ones that the baby dinosaurs eat that actually look tasty?

I suppose it says something that my homeschooling shelf is no better organized.  Oh well.  Plenty of time to alphabetize things when they all reliably know their alphabet.

For the most part my life is pretty, and happy, and funny (too much), and definitely real.  It's nice to call it out once in a while.  We get enough ugly, sorrowful, grim, fake things in our daily diet.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.  We still say "boo!" to the mommy dinosaur dying in "The Land Before Time".  That's just messed up.