Pocketful

For  Documented Life this week, the prompt was to "Create a pocket-fill it with treasures from your week."  Here's what I came up with:

Ta da!

I happened to have a flap on this week's spread, so I turned that into my pocket:

With the help of a piece of scrapbook paper from Jackie, My Honey...

On Saturday, when I read the prompt for the week, I had no clue where I wanted to go with it.  I've been having some trying times recently, and last Thursday and Friday were the worst days I've had for a long time.  Friday was so bad that I think I may have had a mild heart attack or something.  I try not to let things stress me out, especially things I have no control over, but sometimes you just can't help it.  It seems like bad things just pile up and pile up until you reach a breaking point.  It was all I could do to slap down the background colors on the page...and then I was done for the day.

But Sunday was a special day, and I was determined to forget my stress and worries and have a good time.  My family...my mom and two of my sisters and their two sons...had invited me to go to Gatlinburg with them, to the aquarium and wherever else the wind would take us.  If it weren't for their generosity, I wouldn't have been able to go, as I am currently having some money troubles...I won't go any further right now describing that, because I know everybody has money troubles, to the point where I often question why we have to have money at all, especially since it (or the lack of it) causes so many headaches for so many people...but I wanted to mention that they were kind enough to pay my way, because good things deserve to be taken notice of.  I know I wouldn't be in the good mood I'm in right now if it weren't for getting to go enjoy the day with them, so I thank them wholeheartedly.

My mom's very specific monster apple...with chocolate and pecans and drizzled with white chocolate
...no other kind will do!

And so Sunday was a very good day.  Being with my family...or my original family (at least part of it), the before-I-got-married family, who are still my family, though I don't get to be with them as much as I wish I did...was just the ticket to make me remember, yet again, that even when things are really bad, they will turn around and be better soon enough.  

"Amy at the aquarium 072714"...another Mindy Lacefield inspired girl
Can you tell my favorite animal is the turtle?
That's why she got to have a fancy shell!

I don't know why it seems to be so easy to forget the things that are important when we face trying times.  I think the reason that bad things like to pile up on us is so that we start to believe they are bigger than what they are.  In a pile, they can come across as the scary monsters that live under our beds as children, frightening us into believing that we will one day be completely gobbled up by them.  Being with my family was like someone turned on the light, and I saw that what I thought were monsters were only dust bunnies.  And those dust bunnies will be swept away soon enough.

"In dark places, I have found the most beautiful things."

When, in my state of funk on Saturday, I painted my flap with the dark purple paint you see at the top of the above picture, I had no idea that Sunday I would flip though my stash and find a paper that matched the purple almost exactly.  And that the matching paper would have such a nice sentiment on it...one that I could use for remembering the good when the dust bunnies try to choke me out...

"A book of happy thoughts for the week."

I made a little book for the inside of my pocket.  I put my ticket for the aquarium and a card from the place where my mom got her monster apple.  And, most importantly, I wrote down a few small pieces of the day, good things that I was scared I might forget because they are details of a larger picture.  But being small things doesn't make them any less special.

"We outran everything that is bad."

I got the quote from this song, "Peach and Yellow" by Peggy Honeywell:




Yesterday, in a good way, I was thrown for a furious curve.  I got an answer to a question I have had for quite some time, one that I had long given up on receiving.  You might remember from THIS post that "answers" were one of the things I wished for.  I don't quite know how to take it.  I know that it's a good thing, but one that I never expected to get...it's given me a feeling of quiet contemplation...with thankfulness that I don't exactly know how to express.  Perhaps it is just a coincidence.  Or perhaps the universe is throwing me a bone, knowing that I was barely holding on to the end of my rope with my fingertips.  Who knows?  But I am happy to have this knowledge at last.  It's given me hope and seems to have, at least in this moment, made my world right itself to some extent.  I am always amazed when, at the exact moment you feel like letting go, you are given a reason to hold on a little longer.  I find I am tightening my grip yet again, if only to see what's around the bend.