Simple Joyful Moments

Today I had a bunch of time on my hands (mainly during the multiple car rides back and forth to Lincoln), so I thought a lot about the simple things in my life that make me smile. These are things that I sometimes take for granted.

• Silly things my parents say... This morning, Dad came into my room to let me know that my alarm clock had been going off for the past 45 minutes and that I wasn't going to have time to get ready for church if I didn't get my lazy butt out of bed. (A wonderful wake up call.) Then he asked me why I had a golf club in my room. I giggled and then saw it laying on the floor. He had a bit of a concerned look on his face. So I said, "Dad, I needed to practice for my Encore song. We don't have any giant candy canes around here, so I had to improvise." He then gave me one of those 'ugh, you're such a loser' looks and then walked out. For some reason this was just absolutely hilarious to me. I laughed for the next couple of minutes and then proceeded to my closet to endure the daunting task of choosing what I was going to wear that would hide my No-Shave-November legs.
• Awkward things my Girls of Grace girls say... Tonight when I was taking my class of eight 1st graders to music, one of the fairly rude girls, Lauren, (the one that burped in my face a couple of weeks ago) came up to me and said, "ANNATAYYSHHA! Johanna farted on me!" Trying not to laugh, I said, "Lauren, now you know how I felt when you burped and then blew it in my face." She then responded with, "But Annnaaatayyysha that was different! That came out of my mouth! Johanna's fart came out of her butt!" I let out a high-pitched giggle and then turned away so I could laugh. These girls bring so much joy to my life, even when they emit their bodily functions all over people.
• The ghetto-ness of my school... Recently one of the busses at school has had issues with the emergency windows. Every time the bus would go over a big bump, the window would pop open and an alarm would sound. Instead of getting it fixed, they just duct taped it to the side of the bus. So, if there were to be a bus fire, the people on the bus would have to claw at like 7 layers of duct tape before they could escape through the emergency windows. A+ for ghetto-ness.
• The laziness of my family... Last week I was sitting on my bed reading my book, it was roughly 10 p.m. My siblings were all in bed, my Dad was in the family room watching the news, and Mom was watching some drama medical show in her room. My phone started buzzing, so I looked down and it said that Momma was calling me. I answered and heard Momma say, "Stazia, please come turn off my lights, I'm too tired to get up." So I walked across the hall into her room to find that she was laying in bed, 6 feet from the light switch. I turned off the lights and then plopped down next to her. We both immediately started laughing at the fact that she was too lazy to turn the lights off, and too lazy to yell my name, so she called me. We laughed for a couple of minutes until we were both in tears. If that isn't mother-daughter bonding, I don't know what is.
• Silly little things that make me think of my friends... On the way home from church tonight, the song Some Nights came on. We all started singing to it, and half way through it I started crying and laughing. Mom yelled, "Annastazia Rudolph! What is your problem???" I replied with, "It's just not the same to sing this song without Elijah and Byron!" And then my entire family laughed at my pathetic emotions. It was great.
• One-uping people who think they are amazing... During music time for Girls of Grace, there is a college aged girl who sings while Mr. Boehr leads the little kids. This lady very judgemently, she thinks she is God's gift to everyone. She is one of the biggest hypocrytes I have ever met. She has a good voice, but is very nasily. She sounds like she is singing with a clothes pin on her nose. During music time, she sings on stage with a microphone, and the first graders sit in the front row. So, just to be annoying, I sing as loud as I can to try to shelter my girls from the epitimy of nasal terribleness. She gets super annoyed with me singing loudly, so she sings even louder, and then she will get the stink eye from Mr. Boehr because she is singing too loud. This just makes me so happy. I am in no position to dictate when people deserve certain things, but it sure is nice to see people getting put in their place every once and a while.

A very wise coach told me in softball practice one day that "Little things matter!", so naturally I took that way out of context and made my own definition for that phrase.

• Coachs' definition: Don't screw up the little things or you will be benched.
• My definition: Don't take advantage of the small things in your life that bring you little bits of joy.

I concur.