Joy

I recently read a topic on Amy's Live, Learn, Knit blog titled What Brings You Joy? In her post Amy mentioned a book she had read, Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer, which I have added to my "must read" list. During this past week's marathon NaNo writing, I found myself often distracted from my story and thinking about joy. I began to wonder what the difference was between joy and pleasure, since I could easily think of many things that brought pleasure to my world, but not so many things that seemed to bring joy. So today I looked up the words "pleasure" and "joy" online and found an explanation that suited me at Dictonary.com.

Pleasure, enjoyment, delight, joy refer to the feeling of being pleased and happy. Pleasure is the general term: to take pleasure in beautiful scenery. Enjoyment is a quiet sense of well-being and pleasurable satisfaction: enjoyment at sitting in the shade on a warm day. Delight is a high degree of pleasure, usually leading to active expression of it: delight at receiving a hoped-for letter. Joy is a feeling of delight so deep and so lasting that one radiates happiness and expresses it spontaneously: joy at unexpected good news.

So what does bring me joy?

My first thought was writing, but writing is not always joyful or even pleasurable. It can be difficult, painful and emotionally revealing, none of which brings me joy. Writing is something that I have to do, like breathing and eating. It is a rare day that I do not write something, whether a blog post, an email or a letter to a friend (sometimes those are even handwritten!). It does not matter to me whether anyone reads what I write or not. The possibility of an audience is not why I choose write.

Reading also comes to mind, but again, it is more of a need I have, like an addiction to caffeine or nicotine. A day is not complete if I have not had my daily fix of word input and output, reading and writing.

Crocheting gives me pleasure and satisfaction. I find it relaxing, soothing. But crocheting does not give me joy. The act of giving a crocheted item away, knowing that it will be used and appreciated by the recipient, that gives me joy. I never really understood why we needed to save an item that someone had made, pass it down from generation to generation, never to be used. To me, the value of the item is in knowing the person who created that item. If I did not personally know great-grandma Tilly, I am not going to value something made by her nearly as much as I am going to value something made by my Grammy. And so it brings me joy to know that items I have made and given to others are actually being used. That was the reason I made them in the first place!

Here is a picture of the baby afghan I made for my niece's new baby boy:

Knowing that Aiden's older brother loved his afghan and carried it around with him for several years gave me great joy. I hope Aiden enjoys his half as much.

Here is another thing that gives me joy:

Copper has taken to sleeping on laptops and computers. When it was ninety degrees and better outside, she preferred sleeping out on our balcony all day long. But when cooler temperatures came in September, she ceased wanting to go out on the balcony and now sleeps away the day on top of laptops or any other computer she can find that is running and warm. Anyway, just seeing a cat gives me pleasure, but having one (or more) of my own that I can interact with gives me joy.

Photography brings me joy. Amy mentioned photography and art in her post, too. Unlike Amy, I have never been interested in the darkroom and developing of pictures. What I love is the hunt for a good subject, the art of framing the subject and the sense of accomplishment I feel when I capture a moment in time. That gives me joy, knowing that I have saved some essence of "now" that can easily be recaptured in the future simply be looking at the picture.

My children, of course, bring me moments of joy. Their individual births were three such moments. Add to that my granddaughter, Miss Munchkin; I was lucky enough to be present at her birth and one of the very first to hold her. Miss Munchkin brings me joy almost every time I see her. There is just something about a toddler who is happy and curious and loving that is joyful, especially when she is related to you.

I feel joy when we hit the road for a road trip, whether it is just a day's jaunt somewhere or a vacation. There is something truly joyous about leaving behind the every day world for a bit and looking forward towards possible great adventures. And I feel joy every time I step onto a beach. Hearing the waves crashing onto shore and the cry of the gulls, feeling the heat of the sun through the sand on your bare feet, the smell of the salt spray, it all fills me with joy. Oh, and the skirl of bagpipes bring me joy. If ever I were to come across bagpipes being played on the beach while I was walking barefoot with my granddaughter, my heart would likely burst from experiencing too much joy all at once.

Amy's post talks a lot about finding joy in your work or rather work that you find joyful. I know this is the goal of many unschoolers, to find a way to turn their passion into a career. That is a great goal, although I know few that have been able to truly realize it. The only possible work-related thing that brings me joy is being able to find answers and resources for others. I love to research; I love to hunt for the perfect gift, for the perfect book, for that needed quote or just the right word that will complete a project. I think that is why I continue with my website, since HTML and web design certainly does not bring me joy. On the contrary, many days it fills me with stress and frustration. But I love to know that a resource I have reviewed or something I have written has provided an answer to someone's quest. That brings me joy.

So, what brings you joy?

Home Sweet Home

Bill and I arrived home last night, road weary and glad to be back. It is an eight hour drive from Tallahassee to Fort Lauderdale and it does not seem to make much difference time-wise which route you take, Interstate or cross country from Tally to Ocala. At least the traffic was much less hectic yesterday than it was going down on Sunday, which was a good thing. I think our supper Wednesday night might have been loaded with MSG or something. I know I did not like my shrimp dinner and did not finish it, which is practically unheard of, me not finishing shrimp! But it just did not taste quite right and Bill said afterwards that his did not either. Whatever the cause, Thursday morning we both woke up with killer headaches and feeling very lethargic, like we were hung over (which we were not!). So that made for a very long drive home.

But the stay there in Fort Lauderdale (actually Pompano Beach) was very nice. I had a nice visit with a UL friend on Tuesday, Carol B. (Auntie Carol, for you ULers), and I took some cute pics of her granddaughter. Carol's whole family was very nice and it was great to be able to put faces to names.

Here are some pics from our hotel balcony:

The beach on Monday morning, around 9 a.m.

A sailboat I watched on Wednesday afternoon when I was taking a break from writing. I am thinking of making a series of several of these sailboat pics framed above our couch.

And does anyone know what these flowers might be? They were blooming in the pool / courtyard area. I think they might be a variety of hibiscus?

Whatever they are, they were very pretty to look at first thing in the morning while eating breakfast!

Vacation From Reality

Pinch me, quick! I must be in heaven! Picture this. No children. No meals to fix. No hubby during the day time. No laundry to wash. No errands to run. Open my door from the bedroom and I step out on to a balcony overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Blue sky. Rolling surf. Palm trees. Warm breeze. And all the time in the world to write!

We are staying at the Beachcomber Resort in Fort Lauderdale. Bill has three days of Citrix training and so the days are mine!

The drive down yesterday was nice, although the traffic once we hit Interstate in Ocala was crazy. Speed limit of 70 mph? Yeah, right!

And what is it with Ocala and horse farms? It felt like we were in Kentucky with all those horses! I will have to remember to Google and find out why Ocala is horse heaven. Sure was pretty, though.

And now, I'm off to write. Maybe I will take the laptop out on the balcony? Or would that be too much of a good thing?

I Won!

Whoooeeeee! I won a blog contest! Amy held a blog contest for all her readers to celebrate her first full year of blogging. And I won one of her awards! I will be getting some Rhode Island chocolate (from The Chocolate Delicacy in East Greenwich, RI), Newport Coffee Traders coffee, and a Beachcombers Guide to the North Atlantic Seashore. Maybe I'll have to take a trip to New England beaches now! Well, not NOW, but sometime in the future. Thanks so much, Amy!!

End of July Update

Can you believe it is time to wrap up July? Here are some brief thoughts, pics that didn't get posted, and updates on various items mentioned earlier this month.

While Kat and Miss Munchkin were here two weekends ago, we visited the beach. I did not think to check for beach advisories before we left, so we were rather disappointed to discover one when we got there. That meant no swimming. It was hot and sticky and there was no breeze and it was not much fun if you couldn't get into the water. Miss Munchkin played some with her sand and shovel and chased some birds, but we did not stay very long. Next time Grandma will remember to check online for advisories.

I keep telling her Mommy that she needs a haircut!

Penny Update - I took Penny back to the vet on the 23rd for a follow-up. She was doing better and then she wasn't, so the vet decided to do an x-ray to see if she had any kidney stones. Good news: no stones. (Bad news: wasted money on an x-ray!) The vet decided that she likely has a leakage problem that is fairly common with spayed females of her age and size. So she is now on a twice-daily dose of something to prevent bladder leakage. It does seem to be working, which is good news for my carpets! Now to retrieve my rug cleaner when I go back to Alabama next month.

We had a lot of rain yesterday, maybe close to two inches. The pond in the apartment complex is much higher this morning and Mr. Alligator is having fun cruising around. He seems to be enjoying the higher water level. And I notice this morning that the bird that has been fishing around the pond the last week was now staying out of the water, just fishing from the stone bank. Maybe Mr. Bird is more concerned about Mr. Alligator now that Mr. Alligator is getting around the pond more quickly? I don't know what the bird is, maybe a heron or egret. I will try to get a pic tomorrow.

The boys signed up for Kenpo Karate last week. Now they just need to get into a routine again, hopefully one that will not involve me doing all the driving! With David as a driver now, it would seem like I should be able to stay at home when they go.

I have been working on updating my Alabama Church School listings the past several days. Each summer I contact every church school listed (and many, many that are not listed) in my attempt to have the most up-to-date listing of church schools online for Alabama homeschoolers. It is a lot of work, but necessary. There are just so many lists online that are not up-to-date, with inaccurate URL's, e-mail addresses that no longer work, and church schools mentioned that no longer exist.

David's Freshman English class ends next week. It appears that he is doing well in it, perhaps even a B average. That would be great, compared to how he did last year at Evansville. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

And I think that is it for the updates! Tomorrow is August 1st. That is my Grammy's birthday, or would have been if she were still alive. I should make molasses cookies in her memory; she always made the most delicious molasses cookies! I wonder if I have her recipe with me or if it is packed away back in Alabama?

St. George Island

I think we celebrated our anniversary a week late. Yesterday we drove down the coast to Eastpointe and met a work acquaintance of Bill's for lunch at That Place on 98. It was a delicious lunch. We had Peel & Eat Shrimp for an appetizer. Bill had Oysters Rockefeller and a salad and I ordered a cup of Gumbo and their Greek Salad. Tallahassee and the coast here seems to have quite a Greek influence in it's food and the Greek Salad was scrumptious. I need to try the Greek peppers. They look like Jalapeno peppers, which are too hot for me. I didn't try them yesterday, but I will next time I order a Greek Salad. And while I'm not a big fan of oysters, the Oysters Rockefeller was very good.

After our lunch, Bill's acquaintance headed back to Pensacola and we went on to St. George Island to walk off all that food. It was a nice day, not too hot and a very strong breeze, strong enough that you needed to walk down where the sand was wet. The dry sand hurts when the wind whips it against your bare legs! Here's some pictures of the beach at St. George Island State Park.

Life Is Good

Fresh sweet corn that tastes like actual corn. Tomatoes that smell and taste like tomatoes. And an afternoon walk on the beach. What more could one desire?!

Miss Munchkin the Water Baby

I am back from my housing foray. Will write more about that later. But we do have a place to land when we get to Tallahassee!

Took Miss Munchkin to the Gulf. Boy, does she love water!