Simple Pleasures 3

For the one or two of you who actually read my ramblings, you might have noticed a pattern forming here with my "Simple Pleasures" blogs. It seems that the older I have gotten the more I seem to "get it."

Get WHAT, you might say! Well........it's like this. I feel like I'm finally "getting" what life and living is all about. We strive so hard in our early years of marriage to accumulate stuff and status. We work our way up in our communities trying to gain more and more respect and we work our way up the ladder within our jobs. We spent countless years rushing, running, stressing, hurrying, scheduling, etc.etc.etc. All the while, we are missing all of life's "Simple Pleasures" along the way.

As we age and begin to have grandchildren and our lives begin to slow somewhat, we look around and realize our children are all grown and gone and all those things that we spent so much time and effort working for, hardly matter as much now that your children are gone.

But then, along come grandchildren and they fill our lives with joy and pride. Deep within our hearts they seem to fill places that we never even knew existed and we begin to realize a wonderful truth. It isn't things that we buy our grandchildren that they cherish. They cherish TIME spent with US!!! All around us are "Simple Pleasures" to enjoy with our delightful grandchildren and they light up when silly games are played, silly songs are made up, cardboard boxes become boats or trains and in the caboose you climb cause that's where they want YOU to sit!! A front porch becomes a sailing ship and bikes become motorcycles for us to escape from Indians who are after us!! Closets become our hidden hide-away where no one can see or hear us and the dining room table is transformed into a tent by simply getting a sheet and draping it over the top to hang down.

"Simple Pleasures" that often, but not always, often passed us by in our busyness when our children were little.

Poppa, Ty and Daisy were having a ball in this picture, sitting on the front porch laughing their heads off at invisible flies that Poppa was swatting in the air! Simple huh....but oh so much fun. Over the years, Poppa has made more than one grandchild laugh at this antic!

We need to remind ourselves often that "Simple Pleasures" moments are all around us if we'll slow down and look for them. Life is short. Life is NOW. Life is to be LIVED!!!

Look around....there are "Simple Pleasures" everywhere. I challenge you (like I always challege my youth SS class every week!!!!) stop what you're doing and look for a "Simple Pleasure" moment before another passes you by that you'll never get back.