Why Do We Do What We Do ?
I printout out my latest favorite motivational quote and displayed it for the whole world to see. Since the “whole world” will never be in my personal space, I will share it with you here.
As I have grown older I have found it easier to NOT do something than to do it. That is quite different from the way I used to feel about stuff in general. It is difficult to find many excuses for being idle when all around me are reasons for doing something creative.
Besides, I have TIME because this is chapter four of life.
In chapter four the heroine tries to find important, meaningful new things to do each day without repeating any past mistakes or making too many duplicates.
Even I admit that many of the things I do are silly. I unashamedly admit that most of the things I do would not make the essential services list in today’s virus-culture. I have started saying things like “we will remember that we did this or saw this during the virus of 2020.”
When Grandpa takes a break from his essential services and comes downstairs to have a chat, which is several times during the day, his eyes are always wandering around the room and his fingers are busily lifting and uncovering. He is generally very curious about what I am doing and appears to be truly interested but his somewhat-involuntary use of the word “hmmm” reminds me that he still has no idea why I do the things I do day-after-day. If I catch him and call him on it he says he was just clearing his throat.
We both smile.
I try to help him understand, thinking naively that he wants to understand, by saying that it is very much like what he does and when he gets that puzzled and slightly offended look I know that he is going to say “what do you mean?”
When you have been married as long as we have it is very easy to predict what comes next in almost every conversation.
I remind him that I have long puzzled over how a man can drive for hours almost to exhaustion to catch a fish (or not catch a fish) he is going to return to the water seconds later. I suggest that it is probably the very same fish that he has caught before and that it has resigned itself to its fate and hurries to jump on the fly so it can get back to its swimming.
At least I pursue my folly where it is warm and where it isn’t raining or snowing except outside of my wonderful windows.
Who has more to show for their time?
It remains a question without an answer.
The UPS truck visits regularly to replenish my printer ink, photo paper and magnet sheets. Now and then I can’t find something I know I have, even after it has been perfectly labeled and put away in a logical fashion. Even after I have assured myself that I will always remember exactly what I had in mind when I put it away, it eludes me.
Maybe, as it often happens in the movies, things are really more alive than we realize and get up and move around during the night just to make us crazy.
One more thing to be happy about before moving on to the non-essential projects I have been working on this week:
THE MOST WONDERFUL MOUSE PAD I HAVE EVER OWNED
Oh, I love my new mouse pad. I found it on Amazon as you likely already suspected and found it to be reasonably priced. Reasonably priced means that it didn’t cost more than I felt I should spend on something like it which was not essential but had the potential to be satisfying to the eye and the spirit and of making me very happy. I especially love the pattern.
It was also listed as a mouse pad for Gamers, which I am not, so I don’t know why but I do know that I love its length. There is plenty of room to forget what you are doing with your mouse and almost lose it over the edge except that the edge is now so far away that it is hard to make that happen. It came rolled up and is quite thin and lightweight. It doesn’t slip around and looks perfect to me.
Life is wonderful on its face but little things like this make it more so.
Now, some projects which I was leading up to:
It is clear to anyone who knows me that I didn’t get enough paper dolls when I was young. I am making up for it now. For several years I have searched for paper dolls of every kind and converted them into magnet dolls using magnet sheets and my 10-year-old HP printer.
One day at Savers, I thrifted the little tins you see above at 4 for $1. I bought quite a few because I knew my weakness for little things that fit into tins. Also in the photograph above are 4×6 and 5×7 plastic containers with snap-lids. I bought these for my Photo Stories Gifts ( also posted on this blog ) which contain my grandchildren’s lifetimes of photographs, according to me and my camera, and had some left over.
They came in groups of 10 from Amazon.
Both the tins and the plastic containers are perfect for magnetic paper dolls and other types of games. (The tins especially unless you take them to church and the kids drop them on the wooden floor.)
The animal faces you see will become Tic-Tac-Toe games inside of the tins and several of my recent magnetic paper dolls will nest safely inside of the tins for use on the lap, on the fridge, on a cookie sheet, on the backs of metal chairs at church or in the car.
The old-fashioned VWs will soon become a memory game since I found 20 cars on the Internet of the same size in different colors. The car game can be prepared two different ways and I have made many games in both versions.
You can make two of each car. Put cute card stock paper on the backs. Laminate. Turn them all over and play a memory game with them by turning a couple over and seeing if they match.
Or. You can print one of each car, square the car, put cute paper on the back and cut each car in half either vertically or horizontally in the middle and Laminate. Little people can then match the car pieces BY COLOR rather than by remembering overturned cards.
Here’s a closer look inside of a paper doll tin. Pretty cute, huh?
Let’s end this post with one more really fun thing from my personal space. Something that brightens my day with rainbow colors so that I don’t mind at all if the sun goes down in the West with a blast of long-lasting light.
This big, wonderful window faces West. Since our basement is a walk-out, it is very light. Grandpa made the wonderful room where I spend so much time with a wide window sill. I put all kinds of funky stuff there.
Since we had some old trees removed this spring, the sun goes down without as much filtering especially as summer is nearing and it is bright. So. I bought this window film so that I could keep the blinds up and open but could still use my computer.
Just a hint. Window film in a variety of designs is available from Amazon. It is half the price of the same film/brand sold at Home Depot.
