I’m enjoying all the sunflower blooms around the bird feeders as I perch in the swing eating my breakfast. The sunflowers grew from seed the birds spilled from the bird feeders. Some of the sunflower blooms are deformed with only a few yellow petals, some blooms are wide open and full of petals, some blooms tightly shut with only a petal or two peaking out but all so beautiful gathered together, a small glorious garden of bright yellow sunshine under the old water oak. I’ve tried to capture the garden in photographs but the photos just don’t show the garden’s soul.

H. Jackson Brown Junior said, “Always have something beautiful in sight even if it’s just a daisy in the jelly glass.” If we look hard enough we can find beauty in every day. I think the simple things in life are the best gifts. I have a small sunflower in a jelly glass in my kitchen window, a little bit of God’s sunshine in my kitchen.

Anyone ask you how to define hot…just describe today. I sweated so washing the bird baths out and watering the flowers and vegetables my glasses fell off my face. Decided to wait till twilight to finish filling the bird feeders and it was still hot and humid. I’m not complaining, I love God’s sunshine, but I’m doing my yard’s chores early morning tomorrow.

As I scoop out the sunflower seeds at twilight I see Mother Nature has painted the horizon a pale honey gold and the sun walks on the sunset stage dressed in a formal gown of dandelion taffeta. Father Sky is dressed in his goldenrod linen suit with a vivid tangerine pocket square. As the sun takes Father Sky’s hand to walk down the horizon, Mother Nature brushes watercolors on the gathering clouds in beautiful pastel colors of aquamarine, blue, purple, orchid, and pink, her pastel brush strokes beautifully layered on the strips of clouds that quickly dissolve. Mother Nature’s brush strokes don’t linger. Look away and you’ll miss the glorious watercolors.

“Twilight, again. Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end,” Stephanie Meyer. Father Sky has kissed the sun goodnight and left to wake the moon and stars. The waning crescent moon was already pinned high on the dark blue canvas of dusk’s sky. The twinkling stars were waked and Father Sky threw them into the heavens to sparkle in the inky blackness of night. The day disappeared and the night settled in. As I came in the house for the night the night critter musicians were tuning their instruments getting ready to play the symphony of darkness.

Read this in a devotional book this morning — “This moment really reminded me to treasure the small moments. What might seem pretty insignificant could mean the world to the people you love the most.” — and I’ve been thinking all day of small moments of happiness I’ve experienced throughout my life. When loved ones are gone, those little moments are such wondrous treasure chests to open in our memories. Little blooms of happiness and we don’t realize the significance of them as they are happening. All the moments Chief would bring me a wildflower bouquet or the first beautifully colored fall leaf are some of my treasured small moments. “Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us,” Oscar Wilde. I love to sit in the swing and call up memories of my childhood and memories of the years of weekends Chief and I spent happily here.

You know, the most beautiful things in life are not things. They’re our friends and our family, our loved places, our memories, and our photographs. They’re feelings and moments and smiles and laughter. Our material possessions will never make us happy. God gives material blessings to us so we can share our gifts as blessings to others. The feelings that come from our hearts as we experience life enrich our lives and give depth to our emotions. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” Happiness and contentment are found in God. “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart,” Psalm 37:5.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller