Simple Pleasures

One of my all time favorite songs is Simple Gifts. It's an old Shaker song that sings about simple gifts in life. I'm sure at some point you have heard the song and may even know the lyrics:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come out right.

I find myself getting lost in the doldrums of everyday life. I'm the kind of person who doesn't generally find joy in cleaning my house or folding laundry. But, this morning, while doing the dishes I started humming this song to myself and to my son who was helping me. Then I started realizing that every day is filled with simple gifts, or simple pleasures, that make the days enjoyable and make life worth living.

So in the spirit of recognizing and truly appreciating the simple pleasures in my life, I'd like to start sharing with you some of the little joys that break up the monotony of my "every day" living. And in return I would love to hear about some of the simple pleasures in yours.

Contraction Counter

The internet was an amazing resource for my third pregnancy. I was able to refresh my memory on coping mechanisms for labor and learn all sorts of new things like the benefits of red raspberry leaf tea in making contractions more efficient and more manageable.

One of the most amazing things I found online was this wonderfully simple contraction counter. The instructions are in the link, but basically when your contraction starts you click on start and when it's over you click on stop and with that information, the counter will calculate how long each contraction is and how much time was in between each contraction. Then, if or when you're ready to go to the hospital/birthing center, you can print out the chart and take it with you.

But my absolute favorite part about this counter: there's nothing to download and it's free!

Here's the link:
http://www.patatamonkey.com/entries/2005/10/need_to_time_co.html

Let me know if you use it and what you think!

Yoda: my journey into needle felting

So I picked up a needle felting kit from an estate sale a couple days back and decided that, since I had a good amount of random bits of fiber, it would be fun to pull out the kit and give it a go. I've always loved the felted figurines I've seen, like this one from Beneath The Rowan Tree, and I'm the kind of person who has to try it herself... just to say I did... so I decided I was going to make a felted figurine. This is what I came up with. He's a bit on the fuzzy side because he's not fully felted, but I like how he turned out!