corners of our home

I remembered my old gentle books.  They were scattered throughout the house, neglected, so I searched all the bookcases we have in our home, and found most of them.  I’m still missing several (gasp), no doubt under someone’s bed or tucked away in a forgotten spot.

I still remember the first time I pulled Anne of Avonlea out of a bookcase in the elementary school library.   After enjoying Anne, I happily went on to read every one of Montgomery’s other novels.  I discovered newer publications of her short stories and gobbled those up as well.  Then, as an adult, I found her posthumous journals and read a biography written by Mary Henley Rubio as soon as it came out.  The journals and biography were fascinating but depressing for me, as her mental state was quite fragile, but this mind of hers was a beautiful gift regardless of her struggles, as out of it came stories that remain beloved by so many even after all these years.

During the same years that I read LM Montomery’s books, I found and read Cynthia Voigt with the same passion.  I loved reading all of Voigt’s novels and shared them with my mom and my book-loving friends and then my daughter, who loves them, too.  I read On Fortune’s Wheel over and over through the years…..the Dicey books and the Kingdom books will always be mine.

On my bedside table……..

I am reading The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton.  Although I just started it, I can already tell it is a most excellent book that will remain in our home library.

While I was waiting for the boys in the dentist office the other day I picked up a current copy of People magazine and came across an article about the woman who wrote The Life Changing Habit of Tidying Up which I have purposely avoided even looking at because it has been everywhere lately.  Surprisingly, I read the article with fascination!  No wonder the book is a best seller….the author is intriguing and unique to say the least.  I read just one of her many suggestions, this one about folding clothes into little bundles and standing them up in drawers, and just look at what happened in Sarah’s room (only)!!!!

(I ordered the book).

Rich gave me this perfume for Valentines’s Day.  It’s my new favorite!

(and by “gave me” I mean, I bought it for myself on Valentine’s Day while he was coaching Seth’s wrestling meet)

This is how we keep track of our receipts…with an old vintage invoice spike that I found thrifting.  This is the only way to do it, IMO.

I keep track of daily life by writing everything (appointments, birthdays, Rich’s business trips, the kids sports games and school concerts, etc) down on the calendar in our room.  By the end of the year I don’t want to throw them away because it’s such a condensed but detailed view of our family life.

I’ve had this plant for years now and to have it rebloom is such a satisfaction.  It’s saying in the language of flowers, “I’m happy here.”