details

When I was a kid, my family was pretty poor.

I mean, probably a relatively first world version of poor.

We didn't have indoor plumbing until I was about eleven years old...

This was in America in the late 80s and early 90s, so compared to everyone around us, we were pretty poor.  We never went hungry, but we didn't always have a lot of choice as to what we ate...there were always eggs. (I grew up on a chicken farm.)  And egad, do I hate eggs, even now, all these years later.

Being poor is not all negative.

In not having much, it's possible to learn to appreciate what you do have.

With very little around you to distract, you can learn to be observant to the things that someone else would miss.

You can learn to find wonder in simple things.

Those skills are a gift.

"To create something exceptional, your mindset must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail."
-Giorgio Armani

I'm lucky enough to have more now.

I say lucky, but more in the sense of the quote by Thomas Jefferson:

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

I've worked hard to be where I'm at.

Still with the glare...I'm going to figure it out, I swear!

The skills of observation and appreciation, that I mentioned above, are just that: skills.

Skills have to be used in order to be retained.

I find that the more I have, the easier it is to overlook the simple pleasures in life.

And without those simple pleasures, the more complex ones are so few and far between that it's quite easy to forget that there is any pleasure at all.

Happily, observation and appreciation are like riding a bicycle.

You never really forget how once you learn.

Sure you're going to be a bit wobbly at first, but it will come back to you quickly.

I know I'll eventually get over this, the same way I did with tearing up old books, but man it is hard to use old photos in my art...it feels...disrespectful or something...  Even with the really janky ones...

I've got a garden spot full of tomato plants.

I love homegrown tomatoes and, this year, it's pretty well all I've planted.

I planted three packs of tomato seeds.  Way too many...

But I'll have some to share.

Yesterday, I finally noticed some blossoms on my plants! 

I was beginning to think they never would blossom, and yet, here we are.

I've been trying to lose weight.

I'm getting older and my joints were telling me to do it.

Since January, I've lost about twenty-five pounds.

And you know what, my knees don't hurt anymore.

I don't feel run down all the time.

The horrible, horrible hotness of summer isn't killing me like it usually does.

My body seems stronger.

Don't get me wrong, I could easily stand to lose a hundred more pounds and some people would still think I was too fat...but I appreciate the progress I've made so far.

These little changes are giving me the motivation to keep going and keep reaching!

It would be nice to have, say, a twenty dollar bill.

But fifty one dollar bills are worth more.

What I mean is that I want to remember to be moved by small things as much as big things.

Because when you add them up, those little things can mean quite a lot more than the big ones.