Just Looking, Thanks

I've decided to spend this week really looking.
Observing, taking note, walking around with my eyes wide open.
I figure if I am lacking inspiration, it can't hurt.

There's plenty going on right under my nose. So much to be thankful for, plenty to write about, if I really take the time to look.
Stories in miniature, there just for the looking and the telling.

I took my camera and went outside to see what I could find.
Right by my front gate were growing a hopeful group of spring blooms.
I don't know what they're called, but I love them anyway.
These sweet-smelling lovelies are all confused and a bit ahead of their time.
See, it's just gone Winter here in my garden. These little snowdrops aren't due for another three months.
But here they are anyway, poking their heads up at the first ray of sunshine.
I won't cut them for a vase, there's not enough of them. Just three lonely little stems.
Instead I'll let them be, and shake my head at them each time I go out the gate.
Poor little flowers.

When I uploaded my pictures, look what else I found. Forgotten pictures of leaf-collectors.
Made me smile, they did, remembering the day. Daddy offered .01c per leaf to anyone who came and helped him. Two kids were keen to earn some cash; the third stayed indoors in the warm, on the couch. The fashion-icon scooped up leaves by the handful. The gumboot-wearer counted them one by one, as he carefully placed them in his sack.

Daddy came and whispered to me, "You've got to get a picture of this..."
Priceless.
A moment that would have been forgotten if not recorded.
NOTE TO SELF: Take more pictures.

Also observed today...

• A schoolboy wrapped in a blanket, huddled on my bed, sick-bucket nearby (yet still he asks to play Wii).
• A washing machine beeping annoyingly on every cycle; Determined to join its friend The Broken Dishwasher in retirement. (You may observe me washing dishes by hand each day, but you shall not see me dealing with the Laundry Mountain in the bathtub, dammit!)
• A car sitting in the driveway, about to replaced by a younger model. Ahhh sweet Odyssey, so many memories, so many visits to the Panelbeater. (Perhaps your new owner will be more careful around gates. And lampposts. And poles.)
• While getting an iceblock from the garage-freezer for the sickboy, I looked up and observed my mum and dad walking up the driveway, popped in for a cuppa. In the original Eyes Wide Open post written a few years ago, I was lamenting how much I wanted them living in Auckland, and bemoaning that it would take a miracle for them to ever be able to live up here. Please Observe: They now live here. And even own a house.
  NOTE TO SELF: Miracles Happen.

That's all I have for now. Have to go and get the sickboy dressed, push the button on the bleeding beeping washing machine and go pick up the new Odyssey.

What have you noticed today?


P.S. If you're lacking bloggy inspiration like me, maybe you'd like to join me in observing/recording/taking note of the little things around you. If you do, link up your posts to my Best in Blog linky, OK?


P.P.S. The Eyes Wide Open idea was inspired here.