bloodteethandflame

Oh, today.  I needed to hear this today:

There are times when it is hard to believe in the future, when we are temporarily just not brave enough. When this happens, concentrate on the present. Cultivate le petit bonheur (the little happiness) until courage returns. Look forward to the beauty of the next moment, the next hour, the promise of a good meal, sleep, a book, a movie, the likelihood that tonight the stars will shine and tomorrow the sun will shine. Sink roots into the present until the strength grows to think about tomorrow.

~ Ardis Whitman

~~~

And with that in mind, I am focusing on small things that make me happy.

Since our riding lawnmower is broken – its motor won’t start because the battery is perpetually dead – I bought another lawnmower today.

I bought a manual push mower.

Like the kind that you might see in a cartoon.

Like the kind that Ward Cleaver probably used.

The kind with rotary spinny-blades that have to be sharpened with…er, whetstones.

Like the kind that environmentalists (like my dad, or come to think of it, Freyr) could appreciate because they are entirely manual, therefore their use contributes to cleaner air, less noise pollution, and decreases one’s personal carbon footprint.

So.    Yes.

Finding ways towards being a little bit more environmentalist makes me happy.

(And I just think of the workout that I will get, mowing my 1/3 of an acre yard.  I almost can’t wait for it to get here, just for that fact alone.)

I had to order it online.   I was kinda delighted that they still exist – these rotary blade lawnmowers.

And you want to hear something funny/odd?

All the reviewers point out that, while they love the mower, many reviewers lament that their mowers needed to be replaced because manual mowers are more likely to be stolen because gasoline is expensive. 

Duly noted.

~~~

Oh, and speaking of my dad…

He died six years ago this October 20th, and being that this is the time of year when one may be moved to honor ancestors – especially in these last few days with Samhain, All Saints Day, Dia Del los Muertos , and the like – it seems almost magically fitting that my sister sent me this picture this morning:

That’s my dad…eating a Krispy Kreme doughnut, one of his most favorite things in the world.

He was dying of cancer when this picture was taken.  It was about three months before he lost his eye, and about two years before he died.

Even though my mother would get angry whenever my father would eat ‘junk food’ – she had him on a strict macrobiotic/organic diet that she believed would halt the growth of his cancer — he would never refuse the opportunity to eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

Even if it got him in trouble with my mother.  Or made him sick afterwards.

So here’s to you, Dad.

Here’s to you cultivating your little happiness ❤