Mason Jars are everywhere.  I don’t even use Pinterest or go to weddings in barns, and yet they are STILL everywhere.  They are the fidget spinners of the 30 somethings.  I don’t have a problem with Mason jars; they are cute places to stick pencils or pour a drink–I’m not completely heartless or style-less.  However, there is this one Mason jar that has been rubbing me the wrong way for months.  It’s a jar with an agenda.  “Find Joy” it says.  

I have been reading this tag on the side of this jar off and on since Thanksgiving.  The jar is a leftover center piece from the Thanksgiving lunch I signed up to help organize.  A sweet and crafty mom filled the jars with corn kernels and had phrases attached to them.  It was a simple and cute way to decorate the table, and I was so glad that she made them.  In the hustle to clean up and get home, I ended up with some of those jars in my box of stuff.  The jar sat on my front porch for a week or so, until the chickens tipped it over and ate all the decorative corn kernels.  Then when our house was painted, it was stowed away in the porch cabinet of doom alongside containers of evaporated bubbles and the WD-40.

And then when spring flowers started blooming, Charlotte pulled out THAT jar to put roses in.  That was weeks and weeks ago.  The flowers have long since withered and died, and the jar remains on the kitchen island.  Once a stray item finds its way into our home, getting it out and back where it belongs is a lengthy and absurd process.  For you tidy readers, that’s a basic tenet of the messy life.  Maybe it’s because I have been reading snarky books lately, or maybe it’s a Trump presidency, but I am feeling a little sensitive about all these preachy messages.  Is it because church attendance is becoming less common that people are looking for sermons on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and mason jars?  “Find Joy,” “BE the change you want to see in the world,” “Love Wins,” “Reach for the Stars,” “Change is inevitable, growth is optional,”  I’ve had it.

When I see that jar, telling me what to do, all sorts of things run through my jaded mind. “Find Joy” NO! Find my car keys.  Or better still, find the Tile (registered trademark) that I got for Christmas to help me find my keys and/or my phone.  Then while you’re off finding stuff, FIND some computer skills and help me download the app to make that clever device work.  Yeah, FIND that.  Or “Love Wins.”  NO! People who can put on their shoes for themselves WIN.  “Reach for the Stars” NO! Reach for the toilet paper a few more times because I am spending a fortune stain-treating your undies.  Reach for that.  Change is inevitable.  NO! bickering over senseless things is inevitable.  And growth?  Growth seems pretty unavoidable because every single kid in my house needs new Crocs for the summer.  And crocs need to be re-named dinos because they are becoming extinct.  Apparently they are not cool anymore and only homeschooled nerds still want them.

So, yeah, I need to take some deep cleansing breaths, and that jar needs to go.  On second thought, I’ll just pull off the tag but keep the jar.  It is doing a stellar job of holding that fishing lure and metallic sharpie.  Reach for the stars, mason jars.