I’ve spent the first days of September reading Alexander McCall Smith’s Sunshine on Scotland Street from his 44 Scotland Street series. If you haven’t experienced the joy of his books — he’s also the author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series — I suggest you run to the bookstore! The combination of intelligent writing, beautiful language, delicious humor and piercing truths is utterly irresistible. McCall Smith deals with the big questions through characters leading relatively ordinary and mundane lives. His books fuel my soul and occasionally make me laugh out loud.
Speaking of ordinary, I’ve found that many of the moments I end up cherishing at the end of the day are just that. Ordinary. Mundane tasks such as taking my time washing the car and polishing the rims. Or pulling weeds with the sun hitting my back and the radio playing in the background. I even enjoy picking up rotten apples from the lawn before mowing it. And oh, how I love mowing the lawn! Although these moments don’t make me laugh out loud — if you ever see me laughing out loud while mowing the lawn, please stop me — they certainly give me a sense of delicious, peaceful happiness.