Heart at Home

The prayers for rain seem to be working. We are onto our third showery day in a row! It is still not drought breaking rain, the dam levels have remained steady, but it's a start. Even after the very first shower the grass seemed a little greener. Now, after three days, you just have to step outdoors to feel the life returning to the garden. I have taken a few photos. My sunflower started to open its petals this morning. It accidentally grew from spilled bird seed, and has already brought us great joy. The ladybugs seem to love it. They have been all over it since it sprouted!

This week I have been focusing on building a household manual, trying to work on my housekeeping skills. I had an epiphany. I have always hated the housekeeping, and viewed it as a thankless drudgery. I was reading Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, a passage about how our creativity is someting we use all day, every day, as we cook, deal with our children and go into the world. She said "Women are artists of the everyday. The world does not acknowledge or applaud everyday art, so we must."

I am trying to find ways of feeling creative and turning housekeeping into an art form. I have felt like I let down myself when I don't have beautiful crafts to post pictures of or delicious meals to illustrate. I need to find the creativity in my everyday. So, with that in mind, here's the sunflower outside my kitchen window. I'd even be able to see it as I wash dishes, if I were just a few inches taller! And now I am off to find the beauty in coleslaw.