I sip my second cup of coffee and think about all the tasks I need to pull together this week to get ready for a huge event…

…My eyes drift.

I see my boss’s window from my desk. I see the line of trees just beyond it, and I think of yesterday, Sunday, when my husband and the kids lifted a beautiful rainbow kite in the shape of a parrot, above the trees, high in the sky, caught in the wind, and fluttering all free.

Sigh.

I look at my to-do list. The phone rings. I take the call and do my best to find an answer. I hang up and make a note, and I glance at my computer screen, at the picture of my kids at the fair last year stretched across my monitor. They stare at each other’s face, one all red like Spiderman and the other gets her arm painted with glittery pastel flowers. Then I’m thinking about Saturday, packing up some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, taking the kids to my son’s soon to be elementary school, and swinging on a giant red metal porch swing in the sun, eating our lunches and dreaming about the fun we’re about to have crawling all over the playground.

Simple reminders planted around my desk make me smile. I remember these simple moments in life—the best moments. They help me find inspiration and joy, and they push me to keep doing my best at work. To be a role model, to be a good team player, and to teach the importance of the values I love at work to my kids.

The most important feeling I’ve learned in life is to look for the happy in the simple things, and being happy, manifests more happy. More happy manifests dreams and builds reality.

So as we’re looking to build our castles in the sky, remember the dirt, the flowers, and all the exciting parts we live every day.

Happy Monday!