This Week In My Home: Home Days

This week in my home I...

...changed  my blog motto for 2018...Did you notice?  I knew this was something I wanted to do, but just like last year, I had to wait for it.  It gives me a new twist to work with all through the year.  "Bringing riches from an ordinary life."

Really my mottos are all just variations on a theme but at present I'm in a place where what we need to do in our home requires big (as in BIG) bucks.  It would be really easy to get downcast because although we are saving for these jobs it's slow going.

The Heart

I was reading Psalm 19 this week and found myself drawn into a bit of thought.  David is writing about how the Torah helps him daily.  He says it renews one's life, makes the inexperienced wise, makes the heart glad and makes the eyes light up.  

I was drawn into the imagery of how the heart is glad and the eyes light up.  The heart is tied to one's spiritual being.  If my heart is glad, my eyes will be filled with light.  

David goes on to say, "May the words of my mouth become connected to the meditation of my heart."

Then When?

I've just changed up my blog motto.  I'd been sort of looking for something that rang true with me but after last year, I felt sure that the phrase would come up at the right time.  I found it today.  I changed the words only slightly from the original.  To bring riches from the everyday life...It says quite a lot doesn't it?

Way back in the 1990s I got into the solo artist Tracy Chapman.  I bought her first album and listened to it repeatedly.  One of my favorite songs was titled "If not now..."  The first line went "If not now then when?  If not today, then why make your promises?"   In a world of waiting until tomorrow to begin to change or to keep a promise to yourself or someone else, it was a particularly poignant song.

As I've embarked on this new journey into business for myself, I've been reading a good deal of positive thought mottos and listening to inspiring motivational speeches.  One thing that stands out over and over for me is the phrase, "If you don't change today, then when?"  "If you want to live your best life and you won't start today, then when?"

It's been food for thought that's for sure!

Coffee Chat: Snow Days and Sunshine

Come on in dears.  There's coffee and hot tea.  Take your choice, with a piece of fruit cake perhaps, and have a seat. I'm ready for a neighborly chat, aren't you?  

It's so nice to have nice weather once again though it is a bit cloudy.  Yesterday we might have sat on the porch it was such a pleasant day.   I threw open the windows all over the house and let it air.  It seemed a fine thing to do when the weather  once again became rather mild.  I confess that I was happy to have snow and happy to watch it melt right away.  I loved the cold weather and hope we are going to have more of it...but a nice mild day is equally as nice and I took full advantage of the fresh air to get the winter doldrums out of the house.

In My Home This Week: Winter Joys

In my home this week...

...I saw snow this week.  It's not something we see often but every now and then we have a dusting.  It lasted only a few hours though the temperature plummeted after it fell.  Sunlight is a powerful thing when the snow is only an inch or two in depth.

Maddie had no idea what to do.  She sat about looking miserable but wouldn't come in from the snow.  No she sat in it.  She stood in it.  She walked about in it.  Samuel, who had tried to make it west of us, had to turn around and come back home, finding it harder going than he'd anticipated.  He sat in his car for a bit and worked and told me he watched Maddie play in the snow as well.

Misu was the least amused one.  She does not like snow.  For whatever reason, like Maddie, she ignored her house.  Instead, she sat on the front porch welcome mat and groused at us about it.  I knew from past experience she would not go potty anywhere else, so I fixed her up a litter box.  I'd bought the litter a couple of years ago after a snow storm had her frantic for relieving herself.   I provided her with a box of earth then.  Litter is just easier to deal with than frozen dirt.

Balance Beam

As I was working in the kitchen earlier today, I was contemplating a sales ad sheet that I'd moved on my desk. My eye fell upon a certain fruit cup that John likes for his lunches.  My frugal heart truly believes that putting individual servings of fruit in a reusable jar and putting that in his lunch is the very best thing to do.  However, here's another place where I compromise with my husband.  Why?  

Because NOT having the occasional fruit cup that is pre-packaged and overpriced makes him feel  we haven't made a bit of headway financially over all these years.  In vain do I tell him that we've done what we have just because of such swaps as these.  So I bought him fruit cups now and then, though I daresay they tasted no better than those portioned out at home.  

He also liked those little individual cups of cottage cheese. One day I discovered he really liked fruit with a serving of cottage cheese on top.  Can't buy those in a cute little individual cup...so I compromised again.  I bought cottage cheese and went back to portioning out cans of fruit into individual jars with a scoop of cottage cheese from a tub.  Even buying canned fruit and a tub of cottage cheese was less than buying just the individual fruit cups.  I went right back to saving money.

In My Home This Week: Busy Season In Full Force

In my home this week...

...I certainly feel I've been dog paddling hard this week.  However, the party is over at this point and I'll have been down to clean house for Bess and Sam and come home again by the time I get to post this.

The party went well enough.  I quickly saw mistakes but too late to reverse them.  However, mistakes are for learning and I'll be sure and correct those that I saw this first time out.   I have booked three parties off this one and I hope it is the mere beginning.