Hiya, friends. It's November, which means it's the time of year we share our story Messy Blessings. If you haven't read it, it's a short rhyming book about gratitude for the underloved and undernoticed things that are just as much a part of life's rich parade as rainbows or cupcake sprinkles.
I hope you've found much to be grateful for this year.
The complete text is, as always, below. If you want a physical copy, you can purchase the book on Amazon.
— Jeff
PS. The book’s genius illustrations are by Madeline Barber.
We "No" so much there's much not blessed
but don't you think it should be stressed
there's more in life that should be yessed?
Hey, let's put blessing to a test!
Bless rotten pumpkins. Bless some bugs.
Bless awkward people's awkward hugs.
Bless those nettles. Bless this cactus.
Bless a booger just for practice.
Bless snot and phlegm and sneezing fits.
Bless you with all your stinky bits.
Bless smog and soot and ash and dust.
Bless cars dissolving into rust.
Bless ordinary blades of grass.
Bless any piece of broken glass.
Bless hissing brakes and baby wails
and chalkboards under fingernails.
Bless feeling sick and throwing up.
Bless feeling weird
and growing up.
Bless making fun of boring art.
Bless laughing so much that you fart.
Bless grumpy people on the train.
Bless highway traffic in the rain.
Bless snakes that hide beneath the flowers.
Bless minutes fast becoming hours.
Bless all the people you forgot.
Bless nada, zilch, and diddly squat.
Bless your goofing. Bless your botching.
Bless the TV that you're watching.
Bless mischief that you instigate.
And bless too little done too
late.
Bless U-less words that start with Q.
Bless chicken pox
and bless the flu.
Bless you's and me's and poohs and pees.
Bless morning breath
and cavities.
Bless good and bad and all the rest.
'Cause good or bad, life's better blessed.
Now, look around at all you've yessed
and count your blessings, kid.
And rest.
A note to our readers ...
We two aren't experts, but we've found
there's bits of beauty all around.
So if you know somebody stressed,
please share this with them — be our guest!
The world sometimes seems quite a mess.
But when you look, there's lots to bless.
— Jeff and Bob, co-founders
Visit our author page on Amazon to see 320 Sycamore Studios titles available for purchase.
I LOVE this book! I loved it so much I bought it to share with the preschoolers on my campus! It's never too early to teach children to be thankful for what they do or do not have. Thank YOU for sharing this!!
Beautiful just beautiful. Gratitude is the way to go. Thank you for showing us that we can even bless the things we're accustomed to being annoyed by.