J.  One of my daughters, yesterday, told me she thought this blog was a 'little all over the place' and lacked a constant theme.  So perhaps it's time to re-state the case.  
The objective here is to try to point out the obvious without being redundant.  As my very wise sister tells me "...it's only when we slow down and take time to see the moments in life that are so precious...these can be so easily missed in all the chaos."
We are attempting here, in our very small way, to show that an ordinary life is one brimming with beauty.  By practicing the discipline of going through each day with focus...of training ourselves to look at everything with an eye for it's beauty, humour, pleasure, whatever...in permitting the mundane to touch our hearts...we enable joy throughout each day.  As human beings, I believe, that we were meant to be happy, but happiness is not something that happens to you. We each are responsible for our own happiness.  
So much of what we see and hear is about attempting to be the 'most special, most glamorous, most successful'.  What does it all really mean?  The only person we need in our day to measure our successes is ourselves.  We need, therefore, to be kind to ourselves, and to develop the habit of seeing things in a positive light.  This is not a naive view...I am more than aware of the pain and sorrow and hardship in life...but there is beauty in all that too...if we choose to see it.  
As I explained to a friend recently...cup half empty or cup half full?  Mine's half full...but wait, there's more...it's not a cup but a beautiful, hand-cut crystal glass, and it's half-full of the most perfect, delicious champagne....Why? because that's what I choose.