You know, as we rode in the truck today in the rain, it occurred to me that we have a lot of little rituals. I’ll bet you do too. I realized how very important these rituals are to us. I also realized that we aren’t even aware or conscious of some of them.

Kristen commutes. I live 3 miles away from the office. I drive everywhere we go all the time. I love to drive. Kristen loves to be in charge of the music. Kristen puts her cute little piggy toes on the dash bare when I drive. I realized that I love it when she plops her little feet up there. It means we are in the  truck and headed out into the field. It means I am happy.

Perfect!

It also means that Kristen in relaxed and happy. I had never realized that. We have spent a lot of time in the office and separated in work so don’t get a lot of nice days in the field. When we do – we are both so  happy. This all goes back to being a part of what you do. I think we have mud in our veins sometimes.

This realization made me think of all the other rituals we had. We always get Cheese Puffs. It’s what we alway call the perfect field food. Now, any of you who know me know that I am trying to get fit. I friggin love some Cheesy Poofs as we call them. If I am eating Cheesy Poofs it means that Kristen is right beside me in the truck and we are headed out. It means that we are happy.

Taking photos is my ritual. I take photos of damned near everything. I love taking photos of us doing what we do. I call them my marketing photos. Sometimes it’s hard to explain what we do – photos say it all believe me! I also take a million photos of plants and animals. It makes me remember all the beautiful things we see – weird things that we see – and gross things we see!! I have thousands upon thousands of photos and I could probably write an article for each one!

The one ritual I reflected on last today was the phrase we use so much. The phrase started as a way to make something horrid seem okay. It became a way to stop the madness when we saw that things weren’t going to be just so. It helped us make decisions and support each other in those decisions. It made us whole – it made us one – it made us strong – and it made us happy – hell, it made us PERFECT.

I don’t mean we’re perfect. Trust me on that one. I just mean we used the phrase when things were bad – it was okay – it was perfect. We used it when the other felt like they couldn’t make a decision – it was perfect. When we screwed up and had to do a million other things to correct it – it was perfect. When we marked something that was based on professional judgement – it was perfect. It became a way to stand behind each other and the things we did. It made us brave when things were strange or scary. They weren’t bad – they were perfect.

It made me feel good today to see those little toes on the dash. The rain was gently hitting the windshield. The pop music was playing on the radio. We were in the field. We saw three scrub jays. We got out because I had never seen them in real life….they let us approach so close I couldn’t breath….I didn’t know they would do that – let us so close. My god they were beautiful.

Perfect!

The day – was perfect!