Today, we decided this was the best way to handle the clouds and the humidity and the mud and the rain.
Today, we decided this is how you embrace what you’re given.
Today, we made the Fed Ex man look at us sideways and made our retired snowbird neighbor burst out laughing.
These are the things which fill a muggy, dark afternoon spring to overflowing.
Boots: c/o Poco Nido | Tank & Leggings: Thrifted
Earlier, I had all sorts of things I was going to say, but I think the sun fried all my brain cells. Priscilla and Aveline and I were off exploring this morning, and I am pretty sure all of us are now completely melted — it was HOT today!
But don’t miss her very cool (heh) photo tour of Aveline’s time in a Brasilian supermarket, from our outing to Silva’s last week!
Glass Hand Soap Bottle via Mrs. Meyer’s
As I sit down this afternoon to share the prettiest kind of cleaning and organizing inspiration with you, I have to be honest and say that sometimes when I clean, things get ugly.
You should have seen me in the kitchen earlier today. I decided to take apart the entire crisper drawer and lower shelf assembly inside the fridge, so I could give it a good scrubbing. That was fine. But putting it back together was another story, since all the parts disconnected from each other when I took them out of the fridge.
An hour later — sweating, frustrated, and nearly in tears — I finally managed to get everything back into place. (At one point I even downloaded the owner’s manual PDF from the manufacturer’s website. The only help it offered on the plastic piece in question? “Note: Be sure to replace center support before reinstalling glass shelf.” Gee, thanks!)
I’m not sure why I allow things like that to get me so riled up and frustrated. A whole lot of pride and indignation, I suppose, “I should be better at this! If this is still taken apart when Josiah gets home, I’ll be so embarrassed!” But it’s a ridiculous sort of thing to get angry about.
It’s just a fridge drawer (or rather, a series of pieces, which, when properly aligned, magically comprise a set of drawers.) And contrary to the arbitrary pressures I put on myself constantly — news flash! — I don’t actually have to be good at everything (like making crisper drawers out of puzzling plastic parts.) I don’t have to be an expert at all the things. I don’t have to be an expert at all. And I don’t have to be perfect.
Now why is that such a hard lesson for me to learn?
Organized Swedish pantry via Jordgubbar Med Mjolk
Wicker laundry basket via Crate & Barrel
Coffee art print via Billy & Scarlet
Towels and soap via the portfolio of Johanna Pilfalk
See even more Monday’s Pretty Things
I was raised in a home where Charles Dickens was quoted often — not the beautiful literary passages, but the little phrases uttered by quirky characters. These lines have been woven into our family throughout the years and pop up at the most hilarious times. So when I wanted to embroider some tea towels for my mom recently, I knew I had to start with a quote from Mr. Smallweed in Bleak House.
I’d love to make more of these. There’s no end to phrases from great books I could envision stitched out like this. And couldn’t we all use a little beauty infused into everyday chores?
What sort of words would you like to see on a linen towel?
It was my mom’s birthday yesterday.
She taught me — continues to teach me — countless things, among them the simple little fact that everyday chores can be infused with beauty.
She has a incredible touch which makes every little corner so pretty. No one can transform a space so quickly from generic to home like she can — she can make a hotel room feel like you’ve lived there your whole life, and you’re coming home.
She teaches me a cloth napkin folded in half underneath the French press can upgrade that morning cuppa from a routine to an experience.
She teaches me ragged, torn, stained towels belong in the rag box, not in the kitchen.
She teaches me to stop mid-morning or mid-afternoon and savor something, like a tall glass of iced tea.
She teaches me no matter how little one has, it can be made beautiful through a combination of cleaning and contentment.
And most importantly, she’s taught me to start cooking an onion if Josiah’s on his way home and I haven’t yet started dinner.
Sometimes, on Mondays, I need just a little more sunlight, a little bit less clutter on the countertops, a little more music, and a little more coffee.
You too?
Here are seven pretty rooms I’ve had my eye on this past week.
via Caroline Coehorst, styling by Femke Pastijn
via le dans la
Mini Empire wallpaper via Ladnebebe
via Hildas Hem
Mikael Axelsson photo via Feel Inspired
via Baby Ramen
It’s important to combat the tyranny of the urgent. We must not let it consume us.
It’s important to live slowly enough to see tiny moments; those transcendent moments which stand outside of time and give you a glimpse into something beyond what this world can offer.
This morning, as the curtains filtered the sun, and the light wrapped around my little girl, I couldn’t help but realize I was seeing through a glass, dimly. I couldn’t help but think we are souls, primarily; we are bodies only temporarily. (Side note: contrary to popular belief; that’s not actually a C.S. Lewis quote.)
And so in this moment of shadows and light, of heaven and earth, of beauty both tangible and intangible, there was worship.
“The purpose of theology – the purpose of any thinking about God – is to make the silences clearer and starker to us, to make the unmeaning – by which I mean those aspects of the divine that will not be reduced to human meanings – more irreducible and more terrible, and thus ultimately more wonderful. This is why art is so often better at theology than theology is.” –Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss, 130.
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