Appreciation

I've made a post about the beauty of things around me in the past, and in that post, I talked about how beauty affects me (and probably everyone else.)  It warms the heart.  It turns thoughts towards things that are good, and pure, instead of focusing on the ugliness that at times seems to surround us.  My thoughts have been gray-tinged for awhile now, and that tends to only amplify during the holiday season.  The holidays just don't warm me like they used to - I think that I see all  of the nastiness that people are capable of leading up to the celebration...  the woman who pepper-sprayed other Walmart shoppers for threatening her shopping turf, the nasty drivers in the shopping district near my house, so intent on getting out and accumulating stuff that they bang on their horns for any and all reasons, and make nasty gestures out of car windows at one another.  The sheer volume of people increasing no matter where you go.  Whatever.  My intent is not to bring anyone down, or to convince others to not like the holidays - there is good there too, I just have a difficult time seeing it sometimes.

Which is why I decided to take today to focus on the simple pleasures in my own home, far from the hustle and bustle.  And even though I've made a similar post before, I thought it appropriate to do it again, in case anyone else is stuck with me in this place of grayness.  These are the things that fill me with a sense of appreciation.  I'm glad that I have my husband (though he is not pictured) and my animals, and the life that we have made for ourselves.

Okay.  There's really nothing that beautiful about a ratty pair of sneakers and a single mary-jane, but this is what I saw when I came downstairs.  It made me giggle, then laugh.  I must have needed the laugh, because I had to eventually sit down.  Maera loves to hoard shoes.  This is all Maera's fault.  But I thought that anything that got me to give a belly-laugh deserved a mention in this blog post.

And speaking of Maera, one cannot continue to have negative thoughts when THESE brown eyes are gazing at you adoringly.  Well, gazing at you asking for treats.  But I'm sure that there was some adoration in there too.

Bit's glamor shot.  Caught quite unintentionally while she was watching me get ready to do my little bit of shopping.  I love her green eyes.  And her ear tufts.  A world with kitty ear tufts cannot be that bad of a place to live.

Though the photo quality might not be stellar, there are few things that are more pleasant and relaxing than watching a cat groom herself in a shaft of sunlight.  That is the image that I get in my head when I think of the word "contentment."

It's good to see that Argos and Maera are becoming friends.  It warms my heart to see it.  Even if they did evict Annie from the bed.  Really, they'd have been happy to merely join her, but Annie would never consent to that.

One thing that tells me that all is well, and I can relax, is when I come home and Charlotte is on the back of the recliner.  It is HER perch.  It's the first place that I look when I can't find her.  All is well, Charlotte is at her post.

And one thing that I can finally do is look at old pictures of Romeo, and enjoy the beauty that is in them.  I was avoiding pictures of him, because seeing them always made me feel a lump in the back of my throat, and I would have to fight down guilt that we couldn't do more for him than we were able to.  I have finally set aside the guilt, and can look at the single year that we had him as a reprieve from the shelter for him.  He got soft, warm places to sleep, and as you can see above, he WAS able to relax in our house, for all that he was bullied by the other cats.

I hope that you enjoyed the photos.  I know that photos of other people's pets are probably not as relaxing as photos of your own, but I would encourage anyone who is suffering from the holiday blahs to take some time, slow down, and enjoy the loved ones, two-legged and four-legged alike.  The beauty and comfort is there if we but look.