Triangle Eyes

I remember carving pumpkins when I was a kid.  I would draw a design on the pumpkin iteself with a black marker and it was almost always the same design: triangle eyes, triangle nose, and triangle teeth in a smile formation.  Now they have all sorts of fancy designs you can use to make just about anything on your pumpkin.  One of these years I am going to cave in and let go of all the pressure to do a "fancy" pumpkin and go back to those triangle eyes. 

Troy and I look forward to carving pumpkins every year.  We always pick out a design that looks way too complicated, but super cool (on paper) and then regret our decision about half way through the carving when things don't look like they are going so well.  Somehow it all magically comes together when you stand around in a dark room with the tiny candle lighting up your creation from the inside out. 

I received news today that left me feeling very frustrated and I spent a good portion of the remainder of my day trying to find those happy moments to get over my frustration.  Standing next to my husband in a pitch black room with only the glow of two jack-o-lanterns was what finally gave me a moment of peace.  We each chose designs that were more complicated than triangle eyes, and we each made a few cutting mistakes (oops...so long teeth...or eyeball).   We got frustrated many times as we worked on our pumpkins, but we pushed through knowing that a half finished pumpkin was just not worth the effort.  Triangle eyes may have been easier, but the end result would not have been the same.  Sometimes you have to force yourself to work through the frustration to find the sweet moment at the end.