Today was an ordinary day but so beautiful in its ordinariness. Mother Nature revved up the heat telling Fall to hightail it back home. Even Father Sky got her message and sketched his sky pale blue before he added the white clouds. The day is calm and quiet, filled with the songs of cardinals and doves and finches. A few hummingbirds visited the zinnias mid-day but they hurried off to catch the boats to Mexico and Central America. Hope they weren’t raising the gangplanks when they got there.

Well, Jack’s got me again! Went to get my son and me some chicken fingers and apple pies for a late lunch. I asked the lady was the sauce in the bags. “Yes,” she said, “It is.” Actually, I get home, no sauce, but she didn’t forget the pies so I didn’t care much about the sauce. I just give up, not gonna even ask for sauce anymore. I don’t even know why they always ask me what sauce I want. Vet brother eats there for lunch lots of days. They gave him unsweetened tea last week. Glad I wasn’t working that drive through window!

I was thinking tonight, Mother Nature didn’t give me a beautiful sunset, it was muted and colorless. Just as I was turning around to go back in the house, I watched a faint pink glow wash its warmth all over the horizon as the clouds above it turned a wondrous pastel blue turquoise. I was wanting a glorious colorful sunset to bid the day goodnight but the subdued sunset tonight was more beautiful with its watercolored simplicity. I almost missed it because I was searching for something I thought would be spectacular. The simple, wondrous sunset was right in front of me. We don’t have to wait for magical moments they’re all around us. God places them right in front of our eyes. We just have to notice them.

“Gratitude lifts our eyes off the things we lack so we might see the blessings we possess.” — Max Lucado

The twilight sky always touches my soul when I watch the sun bed down for the night. I imagine Father Sky tucking the sun in bed under a colorful quilt of clouds, kissing her goodnight as the darkness covers the horizon. In my mind I see Mother Nature gathering her paint brushes from Mason jars, carefully and thoughtfully choosing her tubes of paint, squeezing the colors on her watercolor palette. I always sit in the swing and watch the sun and Father Sky close the night’s curtains. As the sky turns dark, the moon and stars say a luminous and twinkling hello to the night’s arrival.

One of my friends sent me a quote from Pearl Buck that reads, “Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.” The world is constantly bombarding us with what will make us happy — a new car, a bigger house, a new diet, a new tennis shoe that slips on…. But most of us have learned that these “things” only bring temporary pleasure. The small simple pleasures in life are what make us happy.

We spend so much time and effort into searching for happiness that we end up unhappy. We search for wealth and power and social status but even achieving those things we will find ourselves unfulfilled. The world is full of wondrous beauty all around us. We all chase happiness and it’s right in front of us. Happiness is a conscious choice we make. God can make ordinary days extraordinary when we’re thankful for his blessings.

Love this quote from Brooke Hampton, “I hope there are days when your coffee tastes like magic, your playlist makes you dance, strangers make you smile, and the night sky touches your soul. I hope there are days when you fall in love with being alive.” I can honestly say, at this stage of my life, I am in love with being alive.

You know there are some days when the coffee does taste like magic. Depends on how the day is progressing. Depends on our attitude. Some days we just drag along not being grateful for our many blessings. We never think of the miracle of breath that made another day possible. Hot coffee in a pretty cup, some caramel creamer, and my coffee does taste like magic when I drink it while I’m perched in the porch swing.

I think God hides in the everyday moments we take for granted. When we embrace the ordinary moments we realize God is present and these magical sacred moments are gifts from him.

“Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.” – Camille Pissarro