sharpen

28. layers of colored pencil shavings, swirled together

37. bags of September's plump blackberries, frozen for pancakes on a gray January morning

nuts and bolts

So now that I have a few posts up, I should tell you what I'm doing on this blog. I'm reading a book. It's my January book. Last year I had a January book (The 4:8 Principle) that gave me such a good perspective and helped me to face 2011 with a positive outlook. By September I still remembered what the book was about and it was still my theme of the year, but it wasn't quite "with me" the same way it was back in the early months of the year.

My January book that I hope will be vivid and practiced in my life even on December 31, 2012 is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It's an amazing book that I just love, and I'll try to tell you a little bit of what it's about. In my words, the book is about wanting to get up out of the blues and the rut of everyday life and find things to be truly thankful for. Not just a slap it on "I have so much to be thankful for and am so blessed", but a slow, moment by moment awareness of what is around us and all that is a gift. I like the word awareness...because these things are around us, but how often are we aware of them and delight in them? Voskamp makes a list of one thousand gifts/things she's thankful for, and that's what I'm attempting to do here.

I've started my list. (I currently have 34 things.) My goal is to reach one thousand by the end of the year. I'm also wanting to develop my photographer's eye, and so some of the things on my list will have a picture with them. I'm not going to post every day, because I know I wouldn't be able to keep up with that, but my goal is to post several times a week. Not having internet at home makes it a little harder, but I'm excited about this project and having a creative outlet is so much fun! Plus, focusing on being thankful I think is going to change my life!

keep stacking those cups

34. creating things bigger than us

This is a picture of terraced rice fields in Bali, Indonesia from when I visited that amazing country in 2004. I know that I didn't create those rice fields, but somebody did. I wonder if they ever stand back and are just in awe of the immensity of what they have made with their own two hands. Two hands that are small and seemingly insignificant but can create such incredible things...

I love things that are bigger than me. Whether that's being in Yosemite Valley and looking up at the enormous granite walls surrrounding me, or going into a library with endless shelves of books and books and feeling so excited about all the possibilities of what I could discover on those shelves, or working with a mission trip group building a church, or giving another half an hour of help to a student who is struggling and just doesn't get it, only to watch the clarity come and the lightbulb turn on and to realize that their learning and success is something so much bigger than me.

And #34 originated from two boys who stayed in at recess today to build a structure out of these stackable cups in the classroom. I was eating my lunch and preparing for a science test review lesson, when they got my attention: "Mrs. Fox, look! It's bigger than us!" The colorful wall of cups they had stacked did, indeed, reach higher than their heads and that was the moment that they had been waiting for: when it was bigger than them.

hot lava

24. gleeful hopping around of students when erupting volcanoes

Putting the shattered back together

21. cracked vase, pieces glued back together

This small vase is from Japan and it was given to us as a set with another one for our wedding. I really love it and had it on a shelf behind our fireplace. This shelf is right beside a door leading to the great outdoors, which our cat is very fond of. One day, the cat was on the shelf and I was squeezing out the door, trying NOT to let the cat out. But we have one determined little kitty, and he prevailed and the Japanese vase went crashing on the tiles surrounding our fireplace. I was very sad to see this beautiful piece of pottery smashed to pieces, and determined that I would glue it back together. It sat for months with my pile of stuff to do on weekends or whenever I have abnormal free time to do random projects. Finally, I pieced it back together. It's still missing a piece, but it caught my eye last night as I was making cake pops for my students and I think it is beautiful.