Five Minute Friday - Every Day

I survived the week... just barely.  And June (my work month from hell) has only just begun.  

But today is a day I look forward to all week long.  Friday.  A wonderful weekend stretching out before me, filled with possibilities and family time.  

And rain.  In California.  In June.  I would just like to submit that complaint.  In writing.

I pay a lot of taxes for my sunshine.  So, hello, sunshine?  Care to make a reappearance?  If not, can I stop paying taxes?

Another reason I love Fridays is for The Gypsy Mama's Five Minute Friday link up.  She comes up with a topic, then the challenge is to write for five minutes then click post, no editing, no changing, no second-guessing.  

For anyone who doesn't know me personally, I'll let you know that this goes against every instinct I have.  I'm an editor and proofreader by nature; and I write technical documents all day for work that I would never, ever send out without rereading and editing.  

So, writing my thoughts for five minutes is easy.  Clicking the Publish Post button and restraining myself from rereading or making edits is not.  

Picture me grinding teeth and closing one eye, barely squinting out of the other, mouse poised over the button, internal battle raging. 

"Just read it one time.  No one will ever know." 

"But that's cheating!  I can't do that."

"Do it!  Do it!  Edit it!  You know you wanna."

"No!  Click the button!  Click it!"

And the click it side always wins.  I'm pretty much a rule-follower.  It's the boring side of me.

But back to our regularly scheduled post (if I haven't lost most of my readers already with my incessant rambling and my  Sybil-like internal conflict conversations).

This week's topic:  Every day...

Every day is a gift.  So often, I get caught up looking into the future, to the next big trip or weekend plans.  I forget to live in the moment and to live each and every day just for the beauty of that day. 

L. M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley said it best when she said (and I quote from memory, so this is more a paraphrase):

"After all, I believe that the nicest and most beautiful days are not those on which anything really splendid or exciting or wonderful happens, but just the ones that brings simple little pleasures, following one after the other softly, like pearls falling off a string."

The most ordinary of days can be a wonderful gift.  Last night, I watched my husband and daughter play in our backyard.   I stood at our porch door and watched them through the screen. 

Paityn ran around, chasing after Dan as he kicked her ball.  She was laughing sometimes, and other times, displayed such a comical look of seriousness on her little face.  

She pointed out a bird, felt a blade of grass, picked up a rock in the wood chips. Things I never would have noticed if not for her inquisitive little eyes seeing everything as new and exciting. 

No big plans or trips into the city.  No money spent for an entrance.  No big impressive toys.  Just a half hour of playing in our tiny backyard.

It was beautiful.

It was one of those pearl days, slipping softly off the strand.  No noise, barely any movement.  Just one day following another.  

But each is as precious a gift as a perfect pearl.