Donuts, the Beach and Parties

So I recently started reading a blog by someone that I've quickly come to admire. Her name is Kelle Hampton and she writes the most articulate posts and takes the loveliest pictures.

She has two stepsons, two daughters and another little boy on the way. At the moment of her second daughter's birth, Kelle and her husband found out she had Down Syndrome. Kelle's blog, Enjoying the Small Things, chronicles her family's life.

There are so many reasons I admire her, but the main one is, I think we really are kindred spirits. However, she does a much better job of actually living her spirit than I do. She celebrates small things like they are big things and I LOVE that. She will randomly decide that she needs to throw a pumpkin carving party, throw it together in two hours, invite people and surprise her elder daughter when she comes home from school. She'll accept a friend's invitation to take their kids for milkshakes after ballet even if that  means cancelling something else she had planned. She decorates for every season even though she lives in Florida and it's usually always warm. She lets her kids use up all the dish soap playing in buckets of water on the driveway. Everything she does seems colorful and so sunny and warm.

I am like this too. I really like celebrations for things that don't always matter. I enjoy any reason to be excited about something and throw a party. I really like things that are colorful and fun. I like the sunshine and the ocean. I love nights that end with midnight trips in your pajamas to somewhere fun.

The biggest diference between me and Kelle? She DOES all this stuff. I just think how I'd LIKE to do it. I read her blog and am full of excuses -- I don't have kids to do magical stuff for, I have no yard or outside space to play, it's freezing cold and snowing right now in West Virginia. So many excuses. But I really should start doing these things, even if it's just for myself. I should paint a wall a bright color, I should throw a Super Bowl party for my friends, I should invite people over for donuts and mimosas some Saturday morning, I should pick up my sister late at night some time and make her eat pancakes with me at IHOP, I should show up to teach ballet one night using music that's funky and fun instead of the usual. I need to send people cards just because or texts to say hello and I'm thinking of them. I really need to take more pictures. (And print them out. My grandmother asked me to print pictures and send them to her. I asked what she wanted pictures of. She said WHATEVER YOU PUT ON FACEBOOK. Oh, so she also just wants to see pictures of Snicks laying about? I can do that!) For those of us who are single, we need to go to the beach with our girlfriends. We need to take our sisters to New York City and visit our best friends in Tulsa. I can do all these things. I don't need kids to do them for. It doesn't have to be summer. My little apartment is a fine place to host a person or two.

This may be hard to see, but this is Snicks holding my hand with his paw. :) 

I really think that it is moments like this that make life magic.

It's so very easy to caught up in the routine of going to work, going to school, going to dance, going home, doing homework, taking a shower, doing it all again. It's easy to go a whole day without doing something fun for anyone. Doing nothing to make someone else's day brighter. Doing nothing to make my OWN day brighter.

I'm sitting here watching the Super Bowl and thinking I should have thrown my own party and see who came. Maybe no one. Maybe I would have eaten nachos by myself. But I bet not. I bet someone would have come. Life can change so quickly. Maybe I'll be watching the Super Bowl next year with the love of my life. Maybe I'll be sitting here watching it at my apartment again with Baby Snicks. Who knows? It's funny to see what can change in a year, using things that only happen once a year as markers.

Point is -- God gave us all a life. One. One life. We can't sit around and wait for things to happen to us. We can't say "I'll do this when..." or "I'll do this if..." We have to do this NOW. We need to have midnight hot chocolate and ice cream for dinner and donut parties on Saturday morning. NOW. This minute.