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Perspective

by Shelly Kneupper Tucker on January 20, 2012

I rolled down the car window to kiss my husband goodbye before going to town to do errands. Isn’t that special? I still kiss him goodbye before I leave for an hour. However, I might not anymore, if it means rolling down the car window. When I hit the button, that window said, “THUNK…. whhrrrrrr.” That’s how I translated it, anyway. The window rolled down — but it would not roll back up!

We opened the car door and stared at it, bumfuzzled. Car manufacturers these days don’t make it obvious how to take a door apart. Not that it would done any good to take it apart. It obviously needed a thingamabob to fix it.

Just when my husband and I were both good and ready to start screaming and shouting at the door (because that always makes a mechanical part straighten up and fly right), we looked at each other and sighed, “It could be worse.

And, it could have been! We had to look at this from a different perspective.

This could have happened when we were out of town on a trip. We would have had to stop and ask directions to a dealership (because Lord knows the Google map on our iPhones would have never led us where we wanted to go). It didn’t. It happened smack dab in the middle of our own driveway.

The window could have broken on a blustery, rainy day. Worse, it could have been a snowy, icy day. It didn’t. It was a balmy 62°.

Catastrophe could have struck on a Sunday, with no way in Thunder of getting it repaired … and we don’t have space in our garage to put a car (is that what that big old room is for?) It didn’t. It was Saturday and the dealership was open.

The dealership could have had to order an exotic part that would take three weeks to arrive. They didn’t. In fact, they had the thingamabob to fix the window AND the doohickey to fix the automatic door lock (which has been broken for months).

After a breezy drive to the dealership, and a hefty bill, my car window worked again. My door lock also works, which means I can use that automatic key again to make the horn honk when I am lost in a parking lot. I missed tooting my horn.

Was the incident annoying? Why, yes it was. We had to change our plans for the day. Instead of running around independently to do our respective errands, we had to go together. Imagine that. It took a broken window to “make” us spend time with each other.

Was the incident expensive? Did you not read that it was repaired at a dealership? Do you even have to ask that question?

We could have allowed this tiny incident to ruin our day. We didn’t. Instead, we chose to look for “only the good.” It takes practice to see the good, sometimes. Occasionally, you just have to get things in perspective. I promise that if you can find good in a difficult situation, you’ll find yourself chewing a lot less of those Tums tablets!

How about you? Do you look for the good? Tell me about it. Meanwhile, I hope your day is filled with only the good.

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Sifting The Trinkets and Treasures

by Shelly Kneupper Tucker on January 16, 2012

I can’t understand why I am drawn to tiny trinkets. Miniature figurines, toys, beads, and buttons always fascinate me. Do they attract you? I can’t seem to throw them away, so I always just put them in a box in a drawer. No more! Now, I’m putting them out on display for my guests to sift through — if they can snatch one of the silver ladles out of my hands.

miniature trinkets and treasures

At a local antique store (about which I will be telling you soon), the owner does a lot of mosaic work using trinkets. She had bowls full of “treasure” all over her shop with tiny wooden scoops in the bowls. With delight I grabbed a scoop and started sifting. It was like sifting in a Pirate’s treasure chest! I was having great fun … until I noticed the shop owner looking at me. I put down the scoop and grinned at her sheepishly. She said, “No, no no! Go ahead and scoop! That’s what it’s for, and EVERYBODY does it.”

You can bet it gave me an idea for all my tiny treasures. I told you long ago about a Hand-some Bowl that my husband gave me. It’s a huge ceramic bowl with carved hands holding it all around. I decided that it would be perfect for displaying my stuff. Why hide it in a drawer? With two antique silver ladles at the ready (bought at a garage sale for a buck, because the kids selling it didn’t know it was silver that needed polishing — they just thought it was dirty), it makes an interesting display for my coffee table.

handy bowl with trinkets

I think it is a success because the first adult who saw it immediately began to scoop. However, I suspected that when I’m not looking five cats would want to scoop, so Mr. Tucker cut a circle of Plexiglass and inserted a lovely drawer knob from Anthropologie in the center.

handy bowl with trinkets and lid

This reminds me very much of the Magical Button Box we had as a child. Momma only brought it out to amuse us when we were sick. That is why it was “magic” … we never got to play with it long enough to grow bored by it. I think that if I were a parent of small children, I might put some trinkets like this in a covered tin to only bring out on special days or days when a child was ill. Do you think that a kid in today’s technological world would find interest in sifting through a bowl full of trinkets and treasures?

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Scraps of Love

January 15, 2012

The afghan that is spread on my kitchen island in the morning sunlight is a special one. First of all, it’s for me, and I never rarely make anything for me. Second, it’s made from scraps of yarn. They call using scraps to make something new “upcycling” these days, but my grandmother would have called [...]

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