Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real: Winding Down, Winding Up

~Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life~ Every Thursday at Like Mother Like Daughter

We find ourselves, over here at Wits' End, in a bit of a small winding down period. A winding down that is merely the calm before the storm, the brief lull before the biggest winding up of the year begins. So it's a pretty weird time.

I speak, of course, of the end of field hockey season which occurs, no joke, four days before Thanksgiving which we all know marks the beginning of the madness known to most of America as The Holiday Season. We're in post season now, going for the state championship (again) with only four games left. It's nice to know there is an end in sight. We're all pretty tired. And even though I know I'll only get about 24 hours to decompress from hockey before I have to dive into Thanksgiving preparations in earnest, I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to close one chapter before opening another.

And it always helps to have lovely weather. Like such as today's submission for Pretty!

 Pretty

Maybe you don't consider this pretty.  But I do.  When I sat up in bed and looked out the window this morning, the sight took my breath away.  I wanted to go out for a walk in it, but nothing would have killed that joy more than having to deal with a very grumpy ten-year-old being dragged around in the mist.

"One misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather..."

The fog made the burning bush look even more brilliant.  I could have sat out there all morning.

How deliciously gloomy!  I feel like gliding through the woods in a cloak, clutching a lantern!

Happy

This is my bedside table.  This is our "textbook" for Calvin's Mythology studies.  This is also what he asks me to read to him every night (cuddled up in my bed).  This makes me immeasurably happy.

Funny

Ok, so what's so funny about a Caller ID display, you might ask?  Do you see the name there?  Shade your eyes, lean in close and click on it.  See it?  If you picked up your phone, irritated because it was interrupting your Wednesday night alone time during which your children and husband are at church and you are sitting quietly under a blanket on the couch, watching Rosemary and Thyme and knitting and by the time you disentangled yourself from yarn, needles and blanket you missed the call anyway, and you saw that name, would you nearly drop the phone?

And then if, while your mind was racing away trying to think of reasons why such an event could be happening, the phone rang from that same name and number AGAIN would you give a small shriek and nearly drop the phone AGAIN?  And then would you answer the phone trying very hard to sound casual, ordinary and, above all, grown up but feeling inside like you just might shriek again or be unable to stop giggling?

Would you then find yourself incapable of remembering intelligent speech patterns upon discovering that your phone was NOT playing tricks on you and Auntie Leila really had called you?  Would your fevered brain eagerly jump to all sorts of glorious conclusions about the reasons why you had been singled out for such an honor?  Would you find yourself breathless, wondering what kind of magnificence was to follow?

And then...if you recognized, once Auntie Leila began speaking, that she was feeling just as uncertain and awkward as you felt would your fear of uncontrollable giggling become a reality?  Would you giggle so much that you were actually cutting her off, rudely drowning out what she was trying to say?  And then when you heard she was calling because she was going over her phone bill and saw the call from that time she so generously offered to speak directly to you over the phone to give you tips about choosing colleges and didn't recognize the number and had no recollection of a phone call that very nearly changed your life, would you be giggling even harder--at yourself?  And then when you realized further that she was calling to shake you down about who on earth you were and how and why you were fraudulently using up her phone minutes, wouldn't you feel so foolish?  And, yet, greatly amused?

And when all was cleared up and Auntie Leila remembered who you are (while still maintaining that your area code looks bogus) don't you think you would have a good laugh?  Wouldn't you think that was funny?

I thought so.

  Real

Our current toilet tissue dispensing situation.  The right brace thingy just fell off the wall the other day and The Viking hasn't gotten around to fixing it yet and I couldn't figure out how.  In his defense, he rarely goes into that bathroom so he may not know about the problem.  And in my defense, I am a bit of a ninny.  So there's that.

This photo is rendered all the more real (and, possibly, TMI) because of its perspective.  Yes, it was taken from the toilet.  Don't you ever take your phone into the bathroom?  Like to maybe play Mahjong because it's the only place you can truly be alone?  Don't worry, I don't take calls in there.  Cause that...is just...icky.

Where has your contentment been found this week?  Take a look around and join us!