When I was growing up, my mom used to talk about the small things that made a difference. Simple gestures that you didn't really notice, but, you could feel them, long after they were done. Little niceties. I think about it often. I have to wonder why the ritual of spending those wonderful Sunday afternoons visiting family has all but ceased to exist. Expecting to have some company that dropped in was a good reason to keep a pound cake baked most weeks, with something truly special during the holidays. That was when those visits were always expected. We spent enough time with the extended family that we knew their food preferences and personalities. I miss it. I really do. Knowing that others had this too brings me comfort. The world was a kinder, gentler place.

The day ends and I try to remember where all the hours went and what I did with my day. As always, it is the small things strung together that made my day. Most days really. One of my kids made dinner last night. It wasn't even that it was extravagant or unusual and by that, I don't mean it wasn't good. It was delicious. I loved it. Mostly because it was done for me. A nicety. I always make dinner, almost always. So when one of them shows kindness like that, it warms my heart. So very thoughtful. I am grateful for this day. Every day, in fact.

Okay, it was lasagne and it was more than delicious! I just didn't want anyone to get jealous. Know what I mean? And a perfect glass of vino paired with it.

I politely decline, never really wanting to give up, until she absolutely departs and takes up residence, in a place that does not include her. Oh, my summer, come back to where you belong! And yet, I can see her, fading off into the sunset of life.

It's best to let her go," he says. No, no, that's wrong. It's never right to give up on someone - Lauren DeStefano, Fever

Flowers. Always. To color my day. #alwaysaflower Let the sun shine in your life. Let joy touch your soul. And so I ask you if the sun shines in your soul, does it really matter if it rains outside? If you had asked me yesterday, as Washington, DC was raining cats and dogs, right before my very eyes, I might have said, yes!! It matters. But, oh, what a difference a day makes! For, in the end, I found, it really doesn't matter at all. Nobody can take my sunshine away

Oh, to feel thankful, I am thankful for the strangers that I encounter through daily living. Their gifts ripple out upon the spiritual waters of the earth and uplift the bond of our shared humanity. People make the world go round. Oh, yes. I love you. I do.

All I have are my words, armed in my mind, written in pen, stand by stand. Oh, yes. Still by hand. It has a different feel. Altered not by keys, backspace, and delete, I write, erase, tear it to pieces and start all over again. And again.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Shakespeare