Beautiful Life: When Ordinary Moments Become Extraordinary

I just watched this video by the band Fisher, who Scott and I discovered way, way, way back in the past when music by indie bands on the Internet was a groundbreaking phenomenon. The song and the video are just so joyful they have helped make my Monday.

I had to share it because it feels like an extension or perhaps rather an expression of the golden ball of Happy that I felt in my heart and soul on Saturday night after a perfectly ordinary day spent with Scott and The Boys.

We slept in, which for us means about 8:30. Then we just puttered around the house. I played with the kids a little, fixed breakfast, made a shopping list. Scott did some work. We ate lunch, and then went to the Buford Highway International Farmers' Market so I could pick up some produce for the week and get the things I needed to make a Broccoli Salad to take to a friend's house for dinner that night.

When we got home, we rushed to get ready to go to our friends L. and F.'s for dinner with them and their two darling little boys. And it was the perfect evening of perfectly ordinary pleasures. Margaritas on the patio. Delicious food like bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed peppers. Smoked burgers. Broccoli and potato salads. Watching the boys run and tumble and play until they were exhausted, sweaty, sand-covered little messes. It was the kind of night that helps people grow closer and can stay in your heart forever. And what I loved most was that it did seem perfectly ordinary in the sense that these are people who have grown to be our friends slowly and over time to the point that we now have a shared history and I hope a long shared future. It didn't seem like a big deal to be going to their home. It just seemed perfectly natural. The way friendships do over time. And it's a wonderful feeling.

Even after we left, loaded into Scott's car with our leftovers and sweet, sweaty, sandy boys, and half a pitcher of margaritas L. sent home with us, I felt so...Happy. All four of us together, laughing and teasing and joking. I felt like I couldn't stop smiling as I thought, "This is it. This is what my life is and it's amazing and I am so thankful for it."

Sadly, it's a rare thing that a day spent doing not much of anything makes me feel connected and alive and perfectly content the way this past Saturday did. The experience, though, makes me appreciate the wonder of my life that much more and makes me determined to experience that joy in every day if not in every moment.