Meri's Musings

Did I ever mention that I'm a bookworm? When I was a wee one, my mother worked in the library when my father was in graduate school. On rare occasions, I got to go to the library with her and hunker down in the small section of children's books. The smell of books and their heft in my hand never fails to enchant me. I love the semi-mystical feeling of losing myself in a great story.

One of the things that was magical about being a kid was playing dress-up, donning costumes and adult clothes and fancy costume jewelry and high heels miles too big. Pretending just for a moment that we were grown-up fancy  people. We could be a nurse or a fashion model or anything our imagination could manifest for those costumed minutes. Too often, as grown ups, we stop playing with possibility. Play dress up more often!

It's easy to stalk JoY this time of year. Family gatherings the excited anticipation in children's eyes the near-manic intensity in the grocery store on Christmas eve day (well, maybe most people don't find that joyful) I found plenty of JoY over the past week, mostly in the form of pint-size people. Little Oliver is now almost seven weeks old.  Good as gold. Loves to be upright. Is a good snuggler. His cousin Serenity  got a rush of joy  from holding him. Logan had fun playing with Serenity, finger puppets and hot wheels (which the cats found absolutely fascinating) and then there was the present-opening part. Poor kid has too many Christmas appearances to count, but each one comes with presents. I want to give him Christmas memories  beyond the ripping of paper and the temporary frenzy of things, so I engineered an outing. Last year,  we nearly froze our fingers wa...

I can't explain it, but for some reason the sight of laundry  hanging on a line  delights me.  Like this shot in Venice or this one in Egypt. Perhaps it's the memory of my mother pinning the wet clothes to the line  with  wooden clothespins.  Or the way I remember sheets smelling when they were dried outdoors. I also have a thing for windows, especially ones with unexpected pops of color. And it certainly doesn't count as a handicap if they're windows in Venice. What delights you? Gives you JOY? Won't you share it with us? To play along: 1. do a post that tells and shows us what gives you joy. 2. capture the URL of the specific post  and paste it into the  Mr. Linky box  along with your name. 3. visit other players -- as many as possible --  and let their joy infect you.   Leave them a comment about their post. Let's start an epidemic of joy!