Worth Sharing:The View from Here

The Nester shared a short four point article about keeping a clean house this week.  She shared this image, which is worth saving and printing and displaying somewhere you will see it daily.

Fair warning, the author apparently has some affiliation with Grove Collaborative and the third paragraph is a sales pitch, really, but scan through for the gems.

Did you make a resolution to declutter or to keep a better house this year?  The Nester's first mention is right on and a trick I employed when  I used Flylady in the first days of this last sojourn to be an at home wife and mom to get my house under control and it helped tremendously.  22 years ago she was just a daily email and message board.  Now Flylady has become a recognized homekeeping expert and a worthy one at that.  I found her constant reminders irritating and motivating at the same time and it truly was because of her that I am the housekeeper I am today.





Because a few asked if I'd share links to the Youtube videos I've watched on narcissism that I have found most helpful I'd like to share this one.  I posted a url in the comments on last weeks Worth Sharing Post of another video I'd found helpful in recognizing myself and finding healing.  This week, this video was beneficial.

Every help I find increases my strength in building stronger boundaries and boundaries are KEY.


Karla shared this on a facebook post and it was so lovely, I just had to share it here.

A Morning Offering

I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

~ John O'Donohue ~

I have found great pleasure in having knowledge at my fingertips that allows me to look up historical references I read in a book or magazine or hear/see on a television program.  In the last episode I'd watched of Downton Abby an art enthusiast arrives to view a Della Rosa painting which the family owns.   I went to look up the man.

Pietro Francesco Della Rose was a Renaissance artist, better known at the time for his skills in Mathematics and Geometry, yet he gained fame in time for his art.   I confess I became deeply interested in a painting of the nativity which was supposed to be in the Royal Museum.  The painting seemed to be far too modern for a 15th century painting, so off I went to look him and images of his artwork up on the internet.  It was this one that really caught my attention:

                                                             Flagellation of Christ

The clean lines, the simplicity of form, the spareness of the painting was what drew me to this picture, as well as the neutral background with the vivid figures in the forefront.   It seems incredibly modern doesn't it instead of 15th century?

Gradually I became aware of the content of this painting.  Perhaps it was just so on the day that Christ was whipped and beaten, with ordinary men standing in the street as if in casual conversation and he being chastised.



Only 8.4% of plastics are recycled...The rest ends up in trash dumps.  In our area it's practically impossible to recycle anything at all.  When I first came back home as a stay at home mom, I tried to be the responsible party for recycling.  Our county doesn't have a door to door pickup for trash, except in town.  They do not have recycling bins at all.    Recycling  requires individual attention and participation.

So it became my mission to carefully wash all plastics and foil containers and sort our recycling into bins I kept here at home.  When they were full, I'd load them up and carry into town to a volunteer fire department where there was a sort of skip with sections that one dumped newspaper, magazines, glass, plastic, etc. into...All too often those skips sat FULL for months on end.  I'd keep adding to the recyclable items in the trunk of my car and run by when we were in town only to haul it all back home again.  More often than not, I was forced to dump the stuff into the dumpsters at the trash dump because I'd been 'saving' it for four months or more and was over run with stuff.  Eventually the skips would be emptied and I'd rush the few items I'd had at home to them and within a week they'd be filled and sitting for months.  It was so frustrating.  I finally gave up.  It seemed pretty useless to me.  I've had a certain amount of guilt about it all these years and so I have leaned on my second defense: avoiding as much excess packaging as possible.  I confess I did far better in my scheme to reduce our weekly trash load than I ever did with recycling.

I thought this video was very interesting...and disappointing...but not at all surprising.  I had heard from other sources that the amount of recycling we were led to believe was ongoing was fallacy.  So yes, I'm inclined to believe the video is truth.



I shared my word of the year last week, according to a quiz I took at dayspring.com   I was reading a blog earlier this weekend where the author mentioned her own word of the year and shared another site as a good source for full definitions, vocabulary.com.   Intrigued by how in depth her own word's definition was, I went to the site to look up the word "BLOOM" which is my word of the year.  I was pleased to read this definition:

noun: The period of greatest prosperity or productivity.  Synonyms are 'peak' or 'prime'.  It can also mean the best time of health or healthiness overall.

I'm liking this word more and more!   If any of you have a word of the year, by all means go check out the definition of your word on this site...It might be enlightening!



The Golden Journey by Agnes Sligh Turnbull.   I finished this book this week and enjoyed it.  I'm pretty sure I picked the book up in a thrift store somewhere solely due to the fact that I like most of Turnbull's books I've been able to find.

Turnbull was born in 1888 in  Pennsylvania to Scottish immigrants.  She went to college and earned a teaching degree.  She married James Turnbull in 1918 just before he left for WWI.  He returned and they were married 40 years.    She published her first short story in 1920 and her first book in 1924 and seems to have published a new book about every two years until her death in 1982.

Some critics felt her books were too moralistic, but she described them as having a hopeful outlook on life.  I concur.  Her books are not fluff and floss but are grounded in basic truths.  Her characters often quote the Bible and poetry and wrestle with questions of right and wrong.

If you have never experienced Agnes Sligh Turnbull, I suggest you try this book or The Bishop's Mantle.