Finding joy, lessons, and even an unexpected blessing in everyday life.
There are days when everything seems determined to test your patience.
This was one of those days.
It actually started before I ever stepped outside.
Somehow, Jim and I had managed to schedule appointments for the exact same time… in opposite directions. Usually we make a pretty good team. I’ll package the day’s orders while he drops them off at the post office, FedEx, or wherever they’re headed while I’m at my appointment. It’s a system we’ve had down for years.
Not today.
Today I was flying solo.
And that’s when the adventure began.
I knew I had one eBay order that absolutely had to go out before I left, so I threw on some clothes and headed out to what we affectionately call the “eBay building.”
Only…
…it wasn’t there.
No problem, I thought. Maybe I’d accidentally carried it over to the Etsy building.
Nope.
Back to the eBay building.
This time I found a box of toner cartridges.
“They don’t look right,” I muttered, but in the spirit of optimism, and because my brain was already beginning to cook in the Arkansas heat, I grabbed them anyway.
They weren’t right.
Back to the Etsy building.
And there they were.
Why the toner cartridges had ended up in my Etsy building instead of the eBay building is one of life’s great mysteries. I suspect even Sherlock Holmes would’ve just shrugged and gone home.
By now, the heat wasn’t just hot – it had become personal.
If you’ve never experienced an Arkansas summer, imagine opening the dishwasher halfway through the drying cycle… then climbing inside wearing blue jeans.
Around here we don’t call it summer.
We call it Arkansauna.
By this point, sweat had become less of a condition and more of a lifestyle.
Then…
As I reached behind my crystal kits to grab the package, I bumped the shelf.
You know that moment.
That horrible, silent moment when your brain realizes exactly what’s about to happen, but your hands haven’t gotten the memo yet.
One by one…
Then all together…
My crystal kits made a graceful swan dive onto the floor.
Thankfully nothing broke.
Unfortunately, everything else happened.
Gemstones scattered.
Boxes shifted.
My carefully organized workspace suddenly looked like a tiny treasure chest had exploded.
I looked at the clock.
Thirty minutes until my appointment.
Fifteen-minute drive.
Package still needed to be wrapped, weighed, measured, labeled…
Nope.
That mess was going to have to wait.
Some victories don’t feel very victorious until later. But I got the package to the post office and still made it to my appointment on time. Lord only knows how I managed that.
By the time I got home, I was hot, tired, and hungry enough to make questionable life decisions.
The crystal kits could wait.
Besides, it still felt like the outside temperature was somewhere between “surface of the sun” and “why is my mailbox glowing?”
So I waited until after dark.
Or… more accurately…
Around three o’clock the next morning.
My goal has always been to give someone the kind of experience I’d want if I were the customer.
When someone opens one of my crystal kits, I don’t want it to feel like they just bought a handful of rocks in a box. I want it to feel like they’re opening a tiny treasure chest. Every crystal is chosen for a reason. Every little detail is there to spark a little curiosity and wonder.
One of those details was a tiny glass potion bottle.
Now before anyone gets too excited, there wasn’t anything magical inside. Just a little water, shimmering mica powder, and a bit of glitter to make it look like something an old apothecary might have tucked away on a dusty shelf. I sealed each one with a cork, dipped it in glittering wax, and added a weathered label to complete the look. They were never meant to be anything more than a whimsical prop, but I absolutely loved the character they added.
As I was sorting through the crystal kits that night, I happened to pick one up and noticed something wasn’t quite right.
Instead of swirling, shimmering “potion,” there was nothing left but a little lump of dried mica powder sitting in the bottom of the bottle.
Then another one.
And another.
The Arkansas heat had quietly done what Arkansas heat does best. Somewhere along the way, the liquid had slowly evaporated. My glittery wax seals looked the part, but they clearly weren’t sealing nearly as well as I’d imagined.
Oddly enough, I smiled.
Not because I was thrilled I’d have to remake them all, but because I had found the problem before one of my customers did.
Fixing them would be easy.
Explaining to someone why the whimsical little potion bottle in their crystal kit had turned into a bottle of colorful dust… that would’ve been a much harder conversation.
That’s when it hit me.
If I hadn’t been rushing…
If I hadn’t knocked over the crystal kits…
If I hadn’t waited until the middle of the night to clean them up…
I probably never would’ve noticed.
What had felt like one more irritation in an already exhausting day had quietly protected both my customers and my little business.
Sometimes blessings don’t arrive wrapped in beautiful packages.
Sometimes they show up disguised as sweat, frustration, misplaced toner cartridges, and a floor covered in gemstones.
Had everything gone according to my plans that afternoon, I never would’ve noticed those little potion bottles were quietly drying out.
Eventually, one of them would’ve made its way to a customer.
Instead, an inconvenient afternoon gave me the chance to make something better.
I’ve found that’s true about more than crystal kits.
Life has a funny way of hiding its blessings inside the moments we’d happily skip.
Maybe that’s why imperfect days have become some of my favorite ones.
Not because they’re easy.
But because they’re usually the ones that have the most to teach us.