Change your attitude with a snap!

You know those days when everything seems to be going wrong? You pour the water into the back of the coffee pot and hear a funny noise. Trying to figure out what it is with a still sleeping brain and see in the dim kitchen through crusty eyes you discover there was already water in the coffee pot and you have effectively poured water all over the kitchen counter. You knock over another cup of water someone so thoughtfully left on the counter while trying to clean up the mess. This wakes the baby up. Now you are trying to hush baby with one arm so he doesn't wake up the other children and clean up the flooded kitchen with the other arm. Your arms are full, but your baby's arms aren't so he grabs the bowl of cereal you just poured for your husband and throws it to the floor before you can stop him. This wakes the other children up. With cereal on the floor and awake children at 6 am, you have a choice to make about how the rest of your day is going to look. It could be ruined. Or you could have joy.


I have learned a little trick to help me keep things in perspective and have joy in times of trial. In moments like this early morning kitchen disaster, I pull out my joy-theft prevention weapon. It is also called a camera. The time it takes me to find my camera and snap a picture allows me to find a chuckle, keep things in perspective, and make light of a situation. I don't want to cry over spilled milk. Or spilled coffee water and cereal. How you react in the small trials is a good indication of how you will react in the big trials, and there will be trials.


Before I learned this trick I might yell, I might get huffy, and I might let this mess ruin my day. I still might yell or get huffy on occasion, but I press on to learn this spirit of joy in all circumstances.

Besides, looking back at the pictures makes it all worth it. I didn't take a picture of this morning's kitchen disaster because it didn't even phase me. But I did catch this "disaster" two days ago...


My little two year old ruined my favorite make-up and the counter has permanent glitter, but look at her smile! No, she didn't get away with this mess and my children know that mom pulling out her camera is not a "get out of jail free" card. She had to clean it up herself, and she won't do it again. Well, we are talking about Butter, so I hope she won't do it again, lol. But I could have stolen that smile off her face and stolen the joy from the entire day by my attitude. Instead, I took a picture, we cleaned up the mess, brushed it off, learned a lesson, and kept going. And we have this adorable picture to laugh about.

Next time things start going downhill, I challenge you to take out the camera and make a memory out of it!