It's the Little Things

I'm the first person to assert it's the little things that make the biggest impact on your life.  These little things can bring you much happiness and fulfillment, or they can make you want to claw people's eyes out.  (Check back soon for a post on "Finding the humor in things when you want to claw someone's eyes out.")  In my work life, that means playing "Arma-did-you-know" instead of just telling students to research facts on armadillos.  Or by making tally marks every time "that" student sneezes because they do it SO much and they are SO annoying you want to punt them down the hallway every time it happens.  The tally marks help.  You want to beat the high score every day.  One day it was 17.  Seventeen.  Sneezes.  From one student.  Now you're silently praying for animal dander and a high pollen count so you can break into the 20s!  It'll happen some day.

Anyway, in my home life, it's a little different.  I was writing all the year's birthdays and anniversaries on our new calendar the other day.  (Yes, literally, the other day.  Yes it's April.  Yes, I have had to apologize to everyone who's birthday I missed in January, February and March because we didn't have a calendar up at the time.)  So, as I am finishing up, I automatically flip through last year's calendar to December, unstick the picture of me that I cut out from a school picture that is taped over a snowboarder's face, and stick it on this year's calendar.  Just like everyone else does, right?  That made me stop and figure up how long I've been taping my face on calendars.  I think it was 2002 when I owned a calendar of airplanes.  I cut my face out of a picture and taped it on the airplane so it looked like I was flying it.  It was just something kind of funny that I could look at every day.  It made me smile.  As far as I remember, I've been doing it ever since!  I've been taped on airplanes, taped over nostalgic advertisements of ladies drinking bottles of soda, and, most years, I've been taped over the faces of snowboarders.  It's my favorite place to be taped because then each month I can imagine I'm catching big air and landing in wicked pow.  Okay, I don't think snowboarders actually talk like that, but still, that's what I'd be doing.  Every month I get to see myself doing something I love in a beautiful part of God's country.  It's a little thing, but it makes me smile every time I look at the calendar.

That made me curious so I starting walking around my house noticing all the things that make me look like a friggin' weirdo to the general public I have that make me happy when I see them on a daily basis. Some of these are kind of weird to talk about in isolation because they've become such a part of my daily life that they seem so normal.  I mean, seriously, why wouldn't someone have a file cabinet to store their clothes?  Having a spouse trophy seems as normal has having silverware in a kitchen drawer.  I could go on, but I'll just let you in on some of my favorite "little things" that spice up my life.  I have a feeling I'm also about to let you in on how much your friend here is a crazy person who may just have a touch of "white trash" coursing through her veins, but, well, that's small stuff that I'm going to just have to find the humor in and not worry about.  :)

Let's begin with the calendar picture.  This year's calendar is all about the elements on the periodic table, and I definitely don't want my taped face associated with that, so I had to improvise.  And it worked!  Got a hug from the hubs!

Old refrigerator magnets from when I lived with roommates in college.  And old roommates' things still being affixed to the fridge by said magnets.

A snowboarding action figure that I've had tucked under the refrigerator door handle for as long as I can remember.  This seems so commonplace.  His name is J. P. after J. P. Walker, my favorite professional snowboarder and the best jibber on the planet.

"The" file cabinet.  The best dresser ever.  The drawers are really deep and they always slide smoothly. As I took the picture, I wondered how many people on a tour of my house have looked at this, never knowing that this is just where we keep our clothes.  No matter how successful I become in life, I hope I always have a file cabinet as a dresser.  It's just so practical!

I love pictures and I enjoy looking at these pictures every morning when I wake up.  If you're on my wall, you mean the world to me.  I value my relationships so much, I want to constantly have the images of my friends and family nearby.

Metal signs.  Thumbtacked to the wall, in most cases.  As with pictures and just about everything else hanging in my house, you can never underestimate the power of a pushpin.  Each one has a story.  And I loooove to tell stories.  You have been warned.

So that's just a few of the small things in my life that make a big impact.  As I'm trying to close this blog post, I keep thinking of more and more "small things" I have laying around that make me so happy.  Like the "I believe in Jesus" window cling on my bathroom mirror.  That's kind of weird but it makes me happy because it was on a friend's mirror in her bathroom when she died.  I always think of her when I see it.  The spouse trophy, the stop sign marker board, the tiny note from my dad that says "I love you baby" and so on.  What do you have that makes you smile each day?