Rich had two dozen pink long stemmed roses delivered to me along with a bunch of balloons for my birthday. Their beauty drew my attention for over a week but by today their heads were hanging so I took some sharp scissors, and snipped them off to dry in a box lid. Once they dry I will thread them and have a garland of memory-roses.

He knows my happy color is pink. It’s the little things that mean so much. Like the color pink, and roses, and surprise snow, and the sound of my children in the house for Presidents’ Day long weekend.

I’ve been getting pieces of jewelry from Brighton for a long time now, but in the last couple years I have noticed they were not staying silvery like they used to. It’s been a puzzle to me, and three different times I asked the ladies in the shop for help. First, they sold me their jewelry cleaner. Although it was in a pink container and smelled good, it didn’t do the trick. Then, I took a piece to the store and had them try. They were just as puzzled as I, and the darkness remained. Lastly, I had a little passive aggressive conversation with the lady a week ago when I went in to use my birthday coupon. She seemed to blame my skin, or my clothes, and again said that no one knows (not even corporate) why “some people” end up with discolored pieces. “Did you try silver cleaner?” She continued with an accusatory tone. I couldn’t leave fast enough with my new earrings.

But I remembered what she said and today I bought silver cleaner and it worked. How dumb it was for me to have to spend several years puzzling this out. Why didn’t I know that their jewelry was real silver, but with a “protective coating”?

It was pretty satisfying to rub the tarnish off. There is something satisfying about taking care of one’s things.

My mom noticed that instead of putting the forks, spoons, and knives into their separate places in the silverware tray, I was just throwing them in. “Housework is art”, she reminded me. Like my jewelry box, my silverware drawer, my life…..all is art.

I was thinking about Genesis the other day, and the first words of the Bible “In the beginning, God created……..”

That soul-nourishing creativity and making all of life my art is important, because it’s of God. It’s a divine purpose. And just like creation, we look and know that what we did in those moments was good.