{"id":31660,"date":"2026-03-11T09:09:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=31660"},"modified":"2026-03-15T11:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:32:17","slug":"small-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/small-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small Things<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u200bLooking back on my life, which I often do at my age, I am frustrated that it took me so long to realize it’s not the things most of us spend most of our lives chasing; it’s the small things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bA hug from a grandfather and the smell of his Old Spice, after hitting a little league home run. Waking up to the smell of my grandmother’s apple pie, made with Granny Smith apples and love, baking in the oven. A three-year-old child running down the driveway as soon as she sees Daddy coming home from work.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bThe smell of the air after a strong summer thunderstorm. The first insignificant flake of snow that marks the end of a season and the beginning of another.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bThe sound of a lonely train whistle disappearing into the summer night. The first green sprouts of the crocuses and the snowdrops and the daffodils, who so beautifully play the sentries of spring and of the warmer days yet to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bIt’s the small things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bThe sounds of the forest, sometimes so difficult to hear, especially when we haven’t learned to take time to listen.<\/span><\/p>\n

The eyes of a child beaming after his very first word; a puppy’s first trick – a handshake. A daddy-daughter dance and her first dress, almost as beautiful as her smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bA mother’s tiny, almost-hidden tear as she watches her little boy climb onto the yellow school bus on his first day of school.<\/span><\/p>\n

The forest, full of winter skeletons, brittle and bleak, slowly and magically explodes into a lush green kingdom of springtime life.<\/span><\/p>\n

A cat in a window, watching the wind whipping past the yard, swirling last autumn’s dry brown leaves around, and around on a warm and breezy early spring day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bIt’s the small things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bThe older I become, the more time I have to reflect on the small things I almost missed because my life was too busy to notice. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now, time is all I have. And though I don’t know how much time I have left, I do know that, however much time I have left, it will be full of memories from the times when I was almost, but not quite, too busy to notice the small things.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small Things \u200bLooking back on my life, which I often do at my age, I am frustrated that it took me so long to realize it’s not the things most of us spend most of our lives chasing; it’s the small things. \u200bA hug from a grandfather and the smell of his Old Spice, after hitting a little\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[228],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31660"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31684,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31660\/revisions\/31684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}