to be happy

I so look forward to the holidays. With total devotion to the concept of a shared time with people you love. Over good food and lovely baubles and gifts that come straight from the heart... Mmm!

I am not blind to the fact that many, too many people have real worries. Somehow we are not spared those. And yet, at this time of the year, we do our damnedest to put them aside. Isn't that a beautiful thing?


Okay, back to the farmette. A sunny day. A lovely day, really.






But I have no time for letting time slip through my fingers. I drive out to do errands and I note that in the fields to the west of us, there's some activity now...






Perhaps I mentioned that efforts to stall development around us ultimately failed. This is the beginning of laying the groundwork for the roads that will criss cross the fields to the north and to the west of us. (The farmette, miraculously, is likely to be surrounded by a buffer nature zone, so that perhaps we wont quite be surrounded by a suburban landscape, but we definitely will see lots of construction here in the years ahead. Ed has threatened to move if it comes too close to us. I'm less inclined to think along those lines. We like living close to the heart of Madison.)


Snowdrop is on vacation from school and so I pick her up at her home today. I bring her to the farmette along with grocery bags of food. She leads the way, Ed carries the bags.






And then she puts stuff away. All in the same reachable cupboard, but I am thrilled with her efforts to be of help.

Okay, little one. You can go play now! (I must remember to retrieve the carrots from the dish closet...)






Groceries must be on her mind, because she goes straight to her toy foods and makes sure her Parisian penguin gets a proper share of orange.






She rests briefly (ahah joins)...






... but is revived with a sip of milk (a rare request on her part... really rare!).






... and a bowl of cherries. Again I show her how to wear them as earrings (am I the only one who did this throughout my childhood?).






She knows that it's a game. Off they come!






After her nap... her long nap! -- well, there's just enough time for her to express her frustration with the way of the world, only to swing toward her usual happy normal. Here she is, engaging ahah in a game of "throw me an orange slice."






I think about Snowdrop's wakeups after a long nap. She wants to be happy, but it takes her a while to get to the point where she can let go of her dozy state.  Perhaps the lesson there is that you don't just automatically fall into happiness. Perhaps sometimes we all need both time and effort. But it's worth it! Really -- for those who are wondering -- it's worth it!