I passed a little girl in the parking lot walking with her mother.
I noticed her beautiful red hair.
The little girl was too young to realize that her red hair is really lovely.
I noticed.

I wished that I could have told the little girl how pretty her hair was, but it was not the place.
If I had seen her in the checkout line with her mother, I cold have told her.
If I knew her or her mother, I could have made sure she knew.
As quickly as I saw them, they passed by me.

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I remember a time when we did not have a computer.
My husband and I were married in 1981.
I still used a typewriter back then.
Our phone was on the wall in the kitchen and cell phones were nonexistent.

I remember the day my husband bought our first computer.
I remember the cumbersome computer tower on the floor.
Wires seemed to be everywhere.
The monitor looked like a bulky television set.

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The post office in my town closes at lunch time.
Every day from 12:00 to 2:00, the post office window is shut.
People can still go inside to get mail from their post office box.
However, sending a package and buying stamps cannot be done during those hours.

I live in a small town.
The post office is a little country post office.
The workers have to eat their lunch.
More times than I care to admit, I have timed my post office trip incorrectly.

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When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband and I bought a mantel clock.
I was still working until a few months before the baby was to be born.
I waited patiently for the mantel clock to be delivered.
It seemed like it took forever to arrive.

I worked at a bank in the town where we bought our first house.
Every year there was a home show nearby.
The bank wanted to be a presence at the home show as well.
They wanted to be nearby when people had questions about home improvement loans.

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I stepped back in time.
I found his shop when I was searching for upholsterers.
It was a little storefront in a town not far away from my house.
I wish I had found this shop first.

I had a rocking chair that needed to be reupholstered.
I wanted to find someone in my favorite place of Amish buggies.
I found someone that was a little less than an hour from my home.
After talking to him on the phone, I decided that I would bring my rocker to him.

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I saw him as I was entering the mall.
He was pushing a cleaning cart.
Spray bottles hung from the sides.
A trash bag was neatly tucked in the front for any debris he might see on the floor.

I thought he looked familiar.
His back was to me so I could not be sure.
He walked away to do another job in another place.
I walked on to do what I came in to do.

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The lines at all the cash registers were quite long.
I decided not to go through the self checkout.
I chose instead to go through the express line.
The sign above clearly said: 20 items or less.

There were four people ahead of me.
However, when I looked at the voluminous carts in the other aisles, I stayed in the express line.
I could see the woman who was checking out.
I could see that her items were already in the reusable bags that the store provides.

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I started to shop at this particular makeup counter in my last year of high school.
I learned from someone wiser than me that a woman has to moisturize her skin.
Many girls my age thought that moisturizing was something they would do much later.
I started all those years ago and have never stopped.

I have been using the same moisturizer for almost forty years.
It is my morning and bedtime ritual.
Wash my face and then moisturize has been my daily routine.
As I got older, I decided to use a little eye cream as well.

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I think most people would agree on the most precious commodity.
It is the thing we value most in relationships.
It is the thing our children value most from us.
It is something that is greatly influenced by our hectic schedules.

The most precious commodity is time.
Time set aside to be together.
Time set aside to talk.
Time set aside for ourselves.

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I have been recycling for years.
I recycling even before it was mandatory in most places.
I would put all of our recyclables in the back of the minivan.
Everything was sorted in containers.

The children and I would drive to the recycling place.
There used to be a line.
We would sit in the car and people would come up to you and help you unload.
I wanted my children to learn the importance of reusing instead of wasting.

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