This Week In My Home: Homemaking Hymn

In my home this week:

 I have once again been enjoying the bird bath that sits under the pecan tree.  The view is directly across from my chair in the living room and so I am well able to see the birds that visit that bird bath throughout the day as I am meant to be working...We won't discuss the fact that I'm truly meant to be working in the kitchen at my desk.

Here is one benefit to the lack of rain.  The birds flock to the bird bath to bath or drink.  This week it was mostly Blue Jays who visited.  I watched Friday afternoon as one turned from the bath after drinking, his beak still glistening in the sunlight before he flew off.  A few minutes later it was a Brown Thrasher which is our state bird and most aptly named as it wears a decidedly brown suit of feathers and it makes a huge noise when it's seeking food on the ground as it 'thrashes' about in the dead leaves.  On days when the windows are open and the sheers have been pulled back, I can see the birds clearly but other days I catch silhouettes more than color.



Anyway, it is the Blue Jay which inspired this week's header photo.  I used it last year and I have looked forward to using it again this year.  The pecan tree has yet to change color but the leaves are thinner.  I know they are thinner because the setting sun now bores into the living room window, taking advantage of the bare spot on the tree.


We're due truly cool weather this week.  I'll have to bring in my plants, most especially the orchids ad the Marantha plant which put out nicely this summer.  I will likely bring in the aloe and the mother in law tongue plants as well but the rest can be replaced next summer.  I've never yet overwintered a fern with any success.

These days, these cooler days make my homemaking heart sing.  I go about the house humming and happy.  I plan meals that warm the insides in a way that no salad supper ever could.  I find myself reading recipes.  I dig deeper into drawers and back of closet to clean places I couldn't be bothered with over summer.  I even enjoy reading about homemaking and choose books and magazine articles that deal with homemaking ways.  I got the Josephine Baker book this past week, before Emilie Loring published under her own name.  I whizzed through it and caught the rhythm of the homemaking hymn she sang in the book...and it is a hymn really, a song of love and praise and gratitude.  Autumn and Winter and Spring, even early Summer days are happy ones for homemaking.  It's just those last heavily heated days of summer when I lose my zeal for what I love the rest of the year round.

I am ready to slow down on projects once more.  I worked hard this past week and finished my list.  I also did the regular work.  I even managed every item on my leisure list as well.  Gracious! I haven't had such a sound week of solid intent as I had this past week.

The week ahead is not entirely clear to me just now but I've discovered that unplanned weeks have a habit of filling themselves up with all sorts of things.  I suppose this one will follow suit.

I plan a bit of work:

There is one task remaining on my list that I've yet to attend to: finish that one wall of cleaning in the kitchen.  I've put it off long enough I reckon.

I have a Jamberry party this week.  I will be busy with posts and games and such all week.  Again if anyone would like to join in the fun, just let me know and I'll issue you an invite post haste.

Grocery shopping might be done this week.  Or it might not.  There's little needed right away except lettuce and we seem to be falling into a pattern of going every three weeks instead of every two.

I need a hair cut.

I have a day out with Mama planned again this week.

And that's as far as my plans go at this time.  I'm sure I'll find some job or other that will suddenly be impossible to ignore.  Housework seems to work that way.

 ...I plan my meals:

 Saturday:  Spaghetti and Meatballs, Salad, Cheesy Garlic Bread. 
This meal was John's request and so I made it.  There are enough leftovers for a meal for one of us on one of his work days this week.  I also made a spaghetti pie (sauce no meatballs) for the freezer.

Sunday:  I have about made up my mind that we'll pick something up at the grocery.  I've wracked my brain and nothing inspires me as quick and easy enough to suit us following church.

Monday:  on my own.  I'm going to go out and look at Kroger for the free items, get a haircut and do a little shopping for a few things I've got on my list.

Tuesday:  Corn Moussaka, Kidney Beans with Oregano, Green Salad

Wednesday:  Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole, Green Beans, Salad

Thursday:  out with Mama

Friday:  Vegetable Soup, Cornbread, Apple Dumplings
                 

 ...I plan my leisure:

Continue on my genealogy research.  I dug about enough last week to discover a mystery and nothing intrigues me more.

Finish reading the book I'd started and begin another.

Read through the last of the October vintage issues.

Have fun.  The shopping I've planned is partly fun stuff as it's not necessity but want that is driving me.  I haven't been thrifting in a good long while and I think now's a good time to go.  I'll tell you the truth...I've been inspired by the book by Emilie Loring I'd just read.  She mentioned yellow china on the breakfast table and I've been thinking about it ever since.  And just maybe I'll stumble upon other treasures...