Pickin' on the Square

This week, we pushed to squeeze in as many things left on our summer bucket list. Last night, we went to pickin' on the square. 

This is where I live! I live where people bring guitars and dulcimers and mandolins and harmonicas and basses and fiddles and gather around the town square to play and sing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and "This Little Light of Mine" with strangers. It's delightful. 

This woman was enchanting. I could have sat for an hour not only to listen, but to watch her little hammers dance along the strings of her dulcimer. She talked to the children and encouraged them to keep practicing piano and try other instruments, too. 

One thing that has been difficult for me is that I t seems like someone is always crying or angry at any given moment in the willardson house, lately. I'm getting a little burned out on tantrums and quarreling, and all of my best efforts to maintain a peaceful atmosphere are failing. I feel like Joy from the movie, Inside Out....frantically running around putting out fires or helping children work out anger, worries, pain, and frustrations and it's one meltdown after another all day until bedtime, when I have my own.  I know it's a season, that it's just normal life to not have sunshine and rainbows all the time, that it doesn't mean I am a bad mother if my children aren't having a happy day, and I know that life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful. 

That said, last night was a real treat for me to have everyone happy at the same time. It was a tender mercy for this mom to have a tear free, tantrum free, worry free evening and I reveled in it.