be joyful...

It was a real challenge, let me tell you, to find anything special or noteworthy about yesterday.

When prior to going to bed in the evening you fail to either wash the dishes, fold the massive heap of laundry piled messily on the living room floor, tidy up the cluttered odds and ends that seem to multiply like rabbits overnight, or prepare in anyway whatsoever for the next morning's school lessons, the order you've worked so hard to establish up until that point disintegrates instantaneously irrespective of your previous efforts, of the progress you managed to wrestle into existence before you crashed and burned with exhaustion.

So needless to say, no heartwarming conversations with my children took place. Nothing of beauty was spied beneath the dust and dirt and grime spread thick and gunky over appliances, dressers and counter tops. No poetry was overheard amidst the whines and moans of the kids, or in the noise of myself cursing that earlier decision to surrender to my sleepiness and therefore fall behind on everything.

But then...aha! There was soup, homemade Chicken Noodle Soup that I haphazardly threw together and which, miraculously (and no, I am not using too strong of a word, here, to describe the unlikelihood of this ever happening again), turned out perfectly. It being dusk and all, I realized that the soup would have to be it: my muse for attaining some semblance of joyfulness. And thus I slurped and sipped my way into an albeit tenuous still a genuine state nonetheless of appreciation for comfort foods, turning a deaf ear to complaints from my picky eaters about the visible spices and too many carrots. "That's fine," I said. "Now there's more for me and dad."

I filled my belly. Troy cleared the table. It was a not too shabby ending after all.