Life Lesson #2 - Appreciate the Little Things

In this weeks podcast you will:

• Be introduced and invited to be a part of a supportive and loving community of Ordinarily Beautiful Women.
• Hear listener feedback/stories from last weeks episode and be encouraged to leave yours at the conclusion of this weeks life lesson.
• Listen to an excerpt from the unpublished retro-historical memoir of the host, Kim Farnes, as she reads episode #2, "Appreciate the Little Things". 
• Have some heart-strings tugged as you listen to one difficult, yet powerful life lesson learned by a child; that altered the way she looked at the gifts given to her in a new, more appreciative way.
• Enjoy two heartfelt and inspirational quotes from a couple of authors who also write on the topic of finding joy in everyday things. 
• Be enouraged to like, share, comment and follow the podcast, so that you will hear each weeks newest life lesson; hitting the airwaves each Monday morning starting at 8AM. 

email:  Lifelessons.ordinarywoman@gmail.com

Facebook:  Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Aha, good morning this morning, my ordinarily beautiful community. This is podcast number two of Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman. Thanks for joining me today, and I hope you had an amazing week and you remembered that your presence is a present to those around you. If this is your first time tuning in, thanks for joining us. To help catch you up, this podcast was created to build a loving and supportive community of women and men if you want to join us, where we hear excerpts of an unpublished retro historical memoir that I've written sharing life lessons I've been blessed to learn from the ordinary people in my life during my formative years in the 70s and 80s. These life lessons are not prescriptive. I am not a licensed therapist or even have a strong grasp of life some days, but they are the lessons I learned from people that took the time when they didn't have to, to talk openly and honestly with a little blonde-haired girl with a gap between her two front teeth, epilepsy and a lisp, that altered the way I saw life from then on. They inspired me to do more, be more, and try harder in life. They taught me too that you never ever give up on someone, and that lesson has always been the cornerstone of my existence. With this podcast, I also hope to make it as interactive as possible. I asked in the first podcast for feedback on my life lesson, and so many of you came through in a big way. I got some amazing stories about who your women were that were like Tammy's grandma. I also received responses about how you've caught yourself introducing yourself as a just somebody. Thanks for sending those in. I want to read parts of them, a couple of them to you. Sherry wrote, There was a family down the street who I longed to be a part of. I felt like I could never ever measure up to their standards, but they always saw the best in me. I made choices they could have been ashamed of me for, but their love for me made a difference in my life. I still hold them as a guide to strive for in life. Their love for me taught me that you can love imperfect people. Although I don't see them often, when I do, they still make me feel valued, cherished, and loved in spite of my mess. Thanks for sharing that, Sherry. I'm so glad you had them in your life and still do. They sound amazing. Janelle wrote, I'm going through that feeling like I'm just a somebody right now. With not working outside the home, I ask myself, is this all there is to me? Making lunches and dinners for my husband? Doing chores, taking care of my dog, grandkids, and helping my mom? I suppose I should be grateful that I get this privilege of serving my family because some people don't have one. She goes on to say that it's great to hear that other women struggle with the idea of being a just someone. She concluded her email saying that in my 40s and 50s I thought I would do big things, but I'm starting to think that God wants me to be faithful in the little things and let him use me every day. I just need to be available. Thanks, Janelle. You are so right. It is the little things that are the big things to those people around us. It isn't always the big things that people remember and that change their lives and make them feel important. It's the little moments, the nuggets of time and energy given to us by ordinary people every day that do. In fact, this is what my life lesson for today is. So life lesson number two appreciate the little things. It was an ordinary, nothing special going on kind of day that my dad would sometimes surprise us with little gifts of affection, things he had seen that made him think of us fondly, and he'd bring those trinkets home for us. Holiday gifts and meals were fun, but it was the random, no real reason surprises that were the best. On this particular day in May, he seemed unusually eager to give us something he had found. He mentioned having a surprise for us during dinner. So I stopped somewhere downtown on my way home, he said, with a slight smile. I found a little shop that just opened, and they had some really neat things inside. Mom gave him a look that showed both love and pride. Theirs was a complicated relationship since Mom had her stroke. She was not able to have those intimate, interesting conversations that most couples had. She'd became unable to give him any real opportunities for those give and take conversations, and on some days you could tell that really got to him. But not on this day. Dad got up from the table, which was only big enough for the four of us, and went to his room. He came back with two long, shiny rectangle boxes and handed one to each of us. My sister, as the oldest, opened hers first. We had learned early on that our family had a pecking order. That was the order in which things went. I generally only noticed she got the first of everything when it was something that I wanted. Not for things that seemed like drudgery, like the first to have to learn to cook, do laundry, or clean the kitchen. On days like today I hated that she got to see her surprise first. She opened the box slowly. She was annoyingly slow at everything she did. Grown ups called it deliberate, careful, and respectful. I called it irritating. She opened the box and her eyes went wide. A smile quickly came to her face as she pulled out a shiny, glittery, pink band Timex watch. This watch was the first digital gift we ever received. Considering high tech for its time, its flashing seconds counter, its LED display, made time telling a seeming luxury. Oh thanks, Dad, she exclaimed as she jumped up from her chair and gave him a big hug. We didn't touch each other much as a family, so when we did it was two seconds of actual joy. Dad looked at me and nodded. Well, go ahead, he said. I quickly opened my box. Although the surprise of what the gift could be went away, I was still excited. I looked inside and there was a shiny, glittery purple timex watch. Oh, it's purple was all I said. Well, don't you like it? he asked. Yes, I said woefully, but it's purple. Dad looked at Mom, Mom looked down at the dinner table and took another bite of her meatloaf. I looked over at my sister, and she then too took a bite of her meatloaf. I sat there, purple watch still in the box, and was mad. Mad that my dad got my sister her favorite colored watch, but he had gotten me a purple one. Had he forgotten that my favorite color was blue, I wondered to myself. Just then my dad pushed himself back from the table. He was still staring at me with both hurt and anger in his eyes. I had no way of knowing that they didn't have blue Timex watches in that store he drove out of his way to to buy us our first high tech gift. I didn't understand that he had spent part of the family's grocery money for the month to get us those just because gifts. I didn't know at the time that my dad had never received a gift from his parents, not because they couldn't afford them, just because kids weren't important enough to them to buy them things. I didn't know any of that when my dad stood up and reached his hand out for mine and said, Let's go. I didn't know where we were going, but it wasn't an angry request or an aggressive motion, so I stood up and grabbed his outstretched hand. We walked into the garage, which was another place in the house I had both reverence and fear of. As a diesel mechanic, my dad spent many hours in the garage, tinkering on cars, sorting his nuts and bolts, listening to sports games and NPR on the radio. A place we were called to to hold the flashlight, help change a tire, and help my dad from the car into the house when he had too much to drink and couldn't walk into the house on his own. We walked to the workbench. I could smell the gas and the oil coming from years of leaky gaskets dripping on the cement floor. I didn't mind the smell. It reminded me of my dad then and still does when I go into auto parts stores, repair shops, and gas stations. Standing at the workbench, my dad reached for his hammer. He had three different sized hammers that hung on the corkboard. The big sledgehammer, the regular claw hammer, and the ball peen hammer. He took down the claw hammer. I hadn't noticed that he had my purple watch in his left hand until I saw it glimmer when he placed it on the workbench. I have a solution for your problem, he said. It's an easy problem to solve, he continued. When you don't like something, you can just get rid of it. And as he said that, he took my hand and his, and together we brought the hammer down on the face of my purple Timex watch and smashed it. There, he said, now you don't have to worry about wearing something you don't like. He put the hammer down, released my hand, and walked out of the garage. Head hung low and shoulders slumped. I'm certain breaking the special thing he went out of his way to buy really was one of those this is going to hurt me more than it does you lessons. That night, hours after I was supposed to have been asleep, I could still hear the TV on from the front room. I'd laid there for hours, feeling bad about what I had done. I wanted to make things right with my dad, but I wasn't sure how. Still not knowing what to say or how to say it, I went to him. He was sitting in his chair watching TV, but not really focused on it. I sat on the footstool in front of him. I don't remember all that was said, but I do remember the look he gave me when I stammered out an apology. I'm I'm sorry, Dad, I said. He took my hands in his and leaned forward. It hurt me that you didn't like my gift. I know, I said, I'm sorry. My dad looked at me, really looked at me. It was one of those moments when you feel that you are connecting with someone on a deeper level. He nodded his head. You know, it's important to really appreciate the little things in life, he said, because often those are actually the big things. Although dad's passed away several years ago now, I still hear those words clearly whenever I'm handed a wiggly worm, a roly pulley potato bug, or a leaf from a child. I get a hug from a non-hugging person, or a last bite of a person's favorite snack, or a just because call or text from a busy friend who I know has a million other things to do with her time. I appreciate all those things because it is the little things that are the big things and truly matter the most. In preparing for this podcast today, I found a couple of quotes I really like and want to share them. The first is written by Amal in his book Borders of the Inner World. It goes, Life is punctuated by big, memorable events, but most of our days are built from the seemingly ordinary moments in between. When we rush from milestone to milestone, we often treat those spaces as fillers, something to get us through on the way to somewhere more important. Yet these in-between moments are where much of our life happens, and they have their own kind of magic. The other quotes written by William Martin in his book Ancient Advice for Modern Parents, it goes, Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it's the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infamite pleasure in the touch of the hand, and make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself. I like that one too. It's written as advice for adults, for their kids, but I wonder when is the last time you caught yourself really tasting a tomato, taking off your shoes, to walk barefoot in the sand or the grass, or reaching out for someone's hand and really feeling the connection. I'm hoping that you'll send me emails to lifelessons.ordinarywoman at gmail.com or send me messages on my Facebook page, which is Life Lessons of an Ordinary Woman Podcast, or click on the fan mail button on these podcast sites to share how this lesson resonated with you. When the last time was that you caught yourself enjoying the ordinary little things in life, the last just because thing that you received, gave, or did that really impacted you or someone else in your life? Do you stop and mentally capture these minutes? Do you hold on to them and see them as the big things? One thing that I appreciate and recognize, for example, is that my husband sends me a text every day at 10 a.m. that simply says, Hello, beautiful. He has done this for as long as we've had cell phones. That text means a lot to me, especially because we're not a couple that has ever been what you would call romantic. So please send me yours. I do read all of them. I want to give a special shout out to Elisa, Mary, Carol Ann, Rachel, and Christine for sharing their stories and thoughts with me this week. Keep them coming. I'd love to hear from all of you. Also, please like and follow this podcast and share with others who you would like to be a part of our community. Until next Monday, thank you for listening and remember that I love you and that you are truly an amazingly ordinarily beautiful woman, and your presence is a present to those around you.