Picnicking

AS much as I wanted to use the post I wrote yesterday for a Bigger Picture Moment, I just couldn’t do it. The prompt for Bigger Picture Moment goes like this: Every Thursday, we come together to share the harvest of intentional living by capturing a glimpse of the bigger picture through a simple moment. Found yours? Join us!

Yesterday’s post was about running away and hiding. Not much intentional living in running away, right? And so I began to think…how do I live intentionally?

I’ve been thinking about summer. Many posts and tweets that I have been reading lately have been lamenting the end of summer–it has flown by, hasn’t it? As I read these end-of-summer writings, I remembered THE LIST.

At the beginning of summer, I wrote out of list of things I wanted to do with the girls. My list has since been lost, but I remember one item I wrote:

HAVE PICNICS WITH PICNIC BASKET

The picnic basket has not left its home in the basement closet. The picnic basket is so cute, so functional…but it has never been used.

Thinking back, we have had a lot of picnics this summer. We picnicked on drives to Des Moines, Iowa. We picnicked on the beach. We picnicked at the playground. We ate on patios and decks.

Just this past Tuesday, I called Ed up at work. “Let’s meet at the roller slide park for a picnic,” I said. (Our names for parks are dictated by the girls’ favorite feature; there’s the boat park, the pool park, the roller slide park…you get the idea.)

And so for dinner we had fried chicken from the Jewel and plenty of playtime with Lily and Emmy.

Simple, spontaneous, and fun. Spending summer time with our daughters. Intentional living? I think so.

And just the kind of ending a summer should have.

Yummy watermelon!

Simple BPM

Visit Hyacynth for more Intentional Living through Simple Moments.

post signature

He Was Watching Me

I remember what I was wearing that morning.

I rarely pay attention to clothes. On the drive home from work, my carpool buddy would say, “Can you believe what so-and-so was wearing today?” I would not have an inkling of what the offender was wearing and why it was so horrid. A fashion maven I am not. It’s fortunate I even get dressed in the morning–I would love to spend the day in pajama pants.

On this particular Sunday morning I was wearing a light blue dress with pink and yellow flowers, topped with a quarter-sleeved yellow cardigan.

As I went to sit in the church pew that Easter, a row of eyes looked up, surprised. Eyebrows went up. Bottoms scooted over. I sat down and Ed sat down next to me. I was sandwiched between him and his family.

I whispered to Ed, “Didn’t you tell your family we were dating?”

“No,” he whispered back.

After the service, we wandered over to the gymnasium, or rather the parish hall as we Lutherans like to call it on Sunday mornings, for the annual Easter brunch. We went our separate ways; I found my family and he went with his. We had been dating for only couple of weeks, after all.

Not long afterwards, I felt someone watching me from across the room. I turned and looked around. The watcher was Ed, smiling at me. I smiled back.

Usually the thought of someone watching you is creepy. Even the title of my post is a little creepy. No one likes to be watched. It’s an invasion of personal space, even if the watcher is far away.

Even so, the intention of the watcher makes all the difference. How often have you gazed at your spouse with love in your eyes? (Or, how often have you glared at your spouse, wishing he would drop dead?)

In this particular moment, as Ed and I looked at each other, we were taking the first steps in our relationship.

And that was not creepy at all.

Simple BPM
Visit Alita for more Simple Moments.
This post is also linked to:
Mama’s Losin’ It

post signature