it’s small joys saturday y’all let’s get it

The back panel of baby's first battle jacket is complete 🍅🏴☀️ Hand painted design plus some storebought iron on letters I eventually had to just sew on individually. @_@

Now to add some patches and spikes...

I'm one of the few people that genuinely LOVES working customer service (hotel receptionist here), like yes the occasional person is rude and entitled. But most of the time? People are kind, and funny, and will jump at the chance to share a bit of their lives with someone else.

The businessman that comes in every week who seemed grouchy at first now smiles and waves when I remember his name, and explains he's just finished a long drive, and he doesn't MEAN to come off as rude, he's just tired.

The mother and daughter who visit the hotel each summer and tell me they've been coming here for years, and each time they visit they go to the pier and save up their tickets for the big ticket items. One day they come through the doors with the biggest grins, the older lady in the wheelchair proudly waving a huge stuffed toy tiger she's "had her eye on for years".

The young man with his girlfriend who looks nervous as he approaches reception, and stumbles over his words, his hands shaking as he signs the paperwork to check in. I've spent the last two weeks on the phone with him organising this; we've set up the bedroom with balloons and petals and decorations, and he's going to propose as soon as they get to the room.

The woman who I've not seen before who asks if I'm local, and tells me she grew up here, and had recently found herself drawn back. We talk about the sounds of seagulls, and the metal clanging of masts down at the harbour, and how the sounds that fade into the background are the ones you miss most when you leave. She's writing a book and promises to send me a copy when she's done.

The regular who goes out of her way to buy us all the strangest biscuits she can find at the tourist shops. We try them together, pulling faces at the ones that just don't work.

The thirty something woman who immediately sees a kinship in me and whispers to me that she has been here before, but under a name she no longer uses, and we celebrate the freedom she feels.

The support group that comes in for coffee each week and sit together filling the foyer with laughter.

Every single person living their own wonderful complicated rich lives, and I get to be a part of that. How is that not beautiful?

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

St. Augustine of Hippo

you know what gives me some hope in the midst of all the horrors? the fact that street dogs will come up to humans and ask for head skritches and belly rubs.

here's an animal that's never lived in a warm home, never had a human to call theirs, but they've met enough kind humans that they know they can ask us for kindness.

that's the thing to hold onto. enough of us are kind. not all. maybe not most. but enough.

One of my favorite parts of life is adopting new personality traits. Last month I decided to become a person who reads in the morning and goes to the library. This month I'm becoming a person who eats oatmeal and loves linen clothes. If you see something in other people that you like, you can just try it on.

You deserve a good life.

Society may have treated you poorly, but that doesn't mean you've earned it.

You are valued and needed by us all.