Are we making too big a deal out of finding the grand purpose for our lives?

Really, our lives are made up of many smaller purposes adding up, (or maybe not adding up to a big thing),  just little things with purpose needing to be done on purpose to help your life, my life, your family’s life… somebody’s life go better!

This morning some of my purposes needing to be done on purpose were:

• Get out of bed and make it
• Wash my face
• Do my exercises to stay in shape and limber – a little self care to help others better
• Get dressed and look presentable for my family and my day
• Help fix breakfast
• Love on the kids
• Unload the dishwasher
• Eat a good breakfast
• Help clean up the kitchen – everything has a place and needs to be in it
• Tidy up for the next kitchen event – lunch!
• Write some hopefully-helpful blog posts
• Write for my new book – a requested autobiography by my kids

‘Those are all dumb little things’, you might say. They have no real purpose to them…but in the grand scheme of things, yes they do. Little things add up to big things, and when the little things are taken care of… gotten out of the way, then larger seemingly more important things can be accomplished without the inward ‘guilt’ that, ‘I haven’t made the bed yet, I skipped my exercise this morning, I neglected to eat a good breakfast…’

These are not purposeless tasks in my day. They make up my day and are part of my purpose.

Let’s not look down on the little daily things which may seem unimportant. They are important…to you – for you, for your family and for others.

Keep up the good work! Excel in your little daily purposes on purpose, and your bigger purposes will be taken care of along the way.

What are some little purposes in your life for today?

Last week we were covered in ice…some of thickest I’ve seen! Lines went down, power went out, internet went down. Three days later we’re back on….but yesterday the icy rain started again and the internet went out.

Ice is still all over the trees, and when the sun shines it is one of the most beautiful sights! It looks like everything is made out of glass – it gleams!

This morning is drab and gloomy, the outdoors thick with frozen white waiting for the thermometer to rise, the sun to come out and melt it all away.

Bushes are starting to have hints of pinkish red on their branches. I noticed a weeping willow starting to yellow up on its branches. About a dozen of our freshly planted (last fall) crocus bulbs are sending spiky green shoots up in the midst of all this cold, even the birds have changed their tune…beginning their springtime tweets.

We have good family who invited us to stay in their warm home, sleep in their warm beds and share good food with them until the power came back on. Our home was down to 50*….still a bit cold for the little kids (even us big kids 🙂 )

Times of adversity, whatever it is, bring people closer together. We were checking in on friends and family, making sure they were doing okay, willing to share what we had with them, drawing and giving strength to each other.

Tomorrow is March 1st, we’ll still have some bad weather, but the winds are beginning to blow winter away and blow in spring.

I’m glad for the rainbow in every cloud. Do you see it?

Who’s Giovanni???

He was a painter from Verona, Italy – a famous one – who lived 1526-1578AD. He painted elaborate frescos, which are water based paintings done quickly to merge into the wall before the paint dries. These he did with architectural details to look like illusions. He painted pretend doorways with a person appearing to step out into the room (see pg. 80 Design History 2nd edition by John F Pile. He painted columns and trees so you felt like you were really there.

I wonder how many of Zelotti’s artistic ‘descendants’ we have today? Their work is so imaginative, creative, real…how do they do it?

Think of our sidewalk chalk artists and graffiti brick wall painters. Look at some YouTubers painting so fast we can hardly follow their movement as they paint tree trunks, wooden fences. They are all so good, they look real… like you’d fall into the ‘hole’ drawn onto the sidewalk, or want to run from the snake or tiger painted on the board fence, or walk right into the tree trunk painted to look like the background.

How can they draw what they see? Or what they can imagine? Or something you want to see?

I hope they keep drawing, painting, chalking, whatever it is they’re good at.

Some people ‘talk’ with their art…so others can ‘hear’ through this art.

We need the arts!