Day 25: We went looking for fall

You’ll have to forgive us Floridians today as we lose our minds over the cooler temperatures that arrived this morning—it’s been a while since we’ve walked from the grocery store to our cars without breaking into a sweat.

I’m still quarantined with a sick kid, day three. But I’ve known this cool-weather day was coming for more than a week now, and I was not going to miss out.

It struck me today that while writing on this topic, I run the risk of presenting my days as all wonderful, all the time—because this series is about intentionally focusing on the good, the praise-worthy in the mundane. (What I’m finding, of course, is that all of it is praise-worthy.) But I hope I haven’t led you to believe that my life is all rainbows and sparkles, that my children are 24-hour-a-day angels, or that I am in a constant state of singing, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!”

None of the above are true; in fact, these last three weeks have offered their fair share of lows—though God has done a serious work on my attitude and perspective. (And we’re not even finished yet!)

Today required a bit of scraping myself up off the floor of my very own pity party and dragging myself out the front door, into the fresh air and sunlight.

When you can’t break free of yourself, go outside. Look somewhere other than the mirror.

So I pulled on a flannel (any excuse to wear flannel, I’m becoming my husband) and coerced my sniffly girl into a pair of stretchy jeans and a long-sleeved shirt (she would have preferred a bathing suit). She climbed into the stroller, and we set out looking for evidence of fall.

My only regret is that it took me until 1 in the afternoon to get to this point. Had I suggested taking a walk outside at say, 10am, maybe we could have turned the day around a lot sooner.

I stopped frequently to snap photos of every lovely thing we saw. We paused to touch flowers growing in the cracks of the sidewalk and to examine a row of marching ants. We marveled at the brilliantly blue sky. We walked past a house with an exceptionally overgrown yard and discovered it had become a butterfly haven.

She chatted away between coughs and sneezes:

“Monster pumpkins are not the best.”

“Have you ever seen a kitty cat pumpkin?”

“Our neighbors sure like Halloween.”

(I laughed out loud.)

What was I so irritable about before our Florida fall adventure?

I don’t remember now. Perhaps that’s the point.

This is a month-long series on taking note of the beautiful in the mundane. I’ve missed a few days here and there, but I think it’ll be okay. Catch up on the rest here!