Life according to Grace: Stop and smell/pee on the bushes

I know what you're thinking... I am obsessed with this fuzzy girl. Grace got a hold of the paper towel roll today and gave it a growling, pawing chow down. It was adorable. What joy she brings us-- when a paper towel roll can entertain you for more than 30 minutes or until someone pries it from your furry grasp, I can’t help but think, ‘There's a lesson to be learned for us all.’ No, don’t start chewing on your trash, yet….
As I get older and busier, I sometimes find that my attention span is shot. It’s a frustrating problem to have—just ask Will. :) I always laugh the hardest when Ellen DeGeneres talks (in her Here and Now sketch) about how we need help keeping up with the pace of things (“so we put a coffee shop here, and a coffee shop here, and a coffee shop here”), don’t have time to make conversation, and have “TBD-- Too Busy Disorder.” We give it an acronym, she says, because we are too busy to say the whole name. So true. Here’s a little clip if you feel like chuckling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfx7UUJbjvo

On Saturdays with Grace, though, there’s never any hurry. We stop to sniff every shrub at the park, we (and by we I mean she) stops to pee on every rock. We stroll along and slow it down, and look for familiar faces on the Monon to actually chat with. We watch the kayakers row down the river from the bridge on the Monon Trail, bark at the ducks (again, Grace, not me), and we take the long way home.

What a great reminder that life’s greatest pleasures can be found in the smallest, most organic things—things we miss when we (and by we I mean me) are on our second double latte, 11th hour of email, 3rd stress-induced zit of the week, and tearing up the carpet doing wind-sprints to/from the printer.

Lucky for me, I get to hang up my heels and spend my evenings with an 87 lb puppy who is able to teach me about the finer things in life….