This week, it’s time to get #small with #SundayStills.

I took quite a few close-up pictures of flowers when I visited China in 2017. I wasn’t a gardener back then, though the desire was there. During my visit, my aunt would bring me to a ranch where she would fill up gallons upon gallons of the farm’s well water while I would wander around, taking pictures of things I’ve never seen.

For this picture, I’m not quite sure what the tiny white flowers were. In the photo description, I wrote they were cabbage flowers because they were growing among the cabbage but now, I don’t think they are. I think these are a common weed in China I don’t know about but aren’t they pretty?

A few weeks ago, I accidentally snapped the main stem to a young bean plant. I thought I had killed it and was going to pull it out. Procrastination me never got to it and guess what, that plant adapted and now, it’s going to produce beans for my consumption.

What I’m trying to say is, I think plants are just one of the most resilient creatures on Earth. Like these wild plants, I shot this on one of my past hikes and thought some of the most amazing plants come from the wild. They grow with minimal amount of water and in the worst kind of soil imaginable.

My final picture is one inspired by Terri’s post. I’m not sure if this little guy was part of the Kindness Project. Back in May 2020, at the start of the pandemic, after working from home for 2 months, I was probably at one of my lowest points. I haven’t seen my co-workers in 2 months, haven’t talked to anyone beside my colleague via emails and text message and mom and her family. I was feeling incredibly hopeless along with probably the rest of the world.

Then one day when I went on my walk, I noticed these colorful rocks by my neighbor’s front yard. I didn’t pay much attention to them at first but when I got to the park, I saw more of them along the loop. This particular rock caught my attention. “Don’t worry, Be happy,” it read.

I bent down and took a picture of it on my phone. I don’t know why but I was glad I did because as I repeated those words in my head, I started to feel different, like this tiny gleamer of hope bubbling up from within. From then on, whenever I felt sad or hopeless, I would take a breath and think of those few words. In a way, I think this little rock got me through the pandemic (and blogging).