Not our carport, just kinda sorta similar.
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Well, the good news is that the contractor and his buddy got the roof put onto our new carport yesterday. These guys are amazing and have un-soured us toward the building profession in general (I'll spare you the gory details of past contractor horrors).
The other good news is that months ago I painted my kitchen yellow.
Now for the bad news--
Because of the new carport, my kitchen is now a perpetually dark, shadowy, yellow Victorian-like box. My two big windows now bring in only a secondhand essence of sunlight and I must leave on the little counter lamp constantly. The old-fashioned pull-chain light over the sink has been "mysteriously" broken for weeks. I say mysteriously, because nobody is confessing to pulling out the tiny chain which I found forlornly under a plate in the sink. We bought a little kit to insert a new chain, but well, these-things-take-time and all that good stuff. There's a light over the stove, but I dislike that one because it shows all the grease.
So I've been playing Pollyanna's Glad Game (being an expert at it) and here is what I can be glad about concerning my so-far-from-sunny-it's-not-even-funny kitchen:
I'm glad I even have a kitchen. And a house, period.
I'm glad that no longer will the sun shine off of our neighbors' fluorescent blue house and cast a ghastly Smurf-colored haze in the afternoons.
I'm glad I didn't paint our kitchen brown.
I'm glad, very glad that the carport will keep the snow off of our car this winter and I won't have as much snow to shovel in the driveway.
I'm glad God provided us with marvelous builders and the money to pay for this.
I'm glad the carport is beautiful (as far as carports go) and that it will increase the value of our house when we go to sell.
Well anyway, I'll play the Glad Game awhile longer and let you know what else I come up with.
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Quote of the Day: Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies.
Charles E. Jefferson (1860 - 1937)
Most days I love my home and my tiny Secret Garden yard. But when I read about clotheslines as I did this week on the Gladys Taber listserv, tricklings of discontent drip-drip-drip on my brain.
I love clotheslines.
They're old-fashioned, helpful and kinda joyful, at least to me. A bright white sheet floating on a breeze is reminiscent of a lake full of sailboats and pillowcases on a line bring visions of vintage women in aproned-skirts standing alongside with clothespins in their mouths. Throw into this dreamy sight a few honking geese overhead and some swaying Shasta Daisies and I've had a peek into Heaven.
Yes, I'm serious.
Anyway, there's no room in my yard for a clothesline of any kind. Trust me, I've spent 11 years trying to find a way. My neighbor used to encourage me to hang our clothes on her line, which I gladly did for 8 years. But one day her adult son removed the clothesline and never put it back up. I could always tell it got in his way. Sigh.
Sometimes I take a wooden clothes dryer rack out into our sunny driveway and hang wet laundry on that and pretend it's the same. But it isn't, especially when the wind flings the clothes away, or worse, knocks the whole contraption over in a heap.
It's at those times when I long for the country. I start dreaming again of a rambling old farmhouse in the middle of a green patch of land surrounded by huge, pioneer-planted trees. I even sit at my dining room table at such times and pretend those are the lovely things I see outside the big windows, instead of the brick wall of our neighbors' house.
The latest issue of Mary Jane's Farm has a wonderful saying: "Farmgirl is a condition of the heart" and that's what I'm choosing to believe.
Besides, it's kind-of wonderful living a life where I must often flick the "on" switch of my imagination. Sometimes how we view a thing is more important than seeing it for what it really is.
The eyes of imagination lend enchantment, even to a city house and a tiny yard with no room for a clothesline.
***
Quote of the Day: I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
Martha Washington (1732 - 1802)
We forget something quite often: If the world collectively says one thing, then probably the opposite is true.
Case in point: Housework has openly been declared unimportant, a waste of time and meaningless. It's been written that cleaning one's house can be done by the brainless, so it need not be done by the wise, the educated or the 'important people.'
Phooey.
Keeping a clean, comfortable home matters. It always will. What am I saying to Tom and Naomi (and even our cats) if I let my housework go? If we are living in a dusty, cluttered rat trap, I am (I believe) saying I don't care about my family's health and sense of peaceful well-being.
Cleanliness is not only next to godliness, it's next to healthiness, also. And most everyone knows that health matters. A lot.
It matters to me that Tom and I don't spend hours each week looking for lost keys, bills, bags, phones or remotes. It's important that we not waste time and be unnecessarily frustrated or set on-edge. And ok, sometimes we do misplace things. But I try to do my part in having a place for everything and--well, you know the rest.
Yes, we could hire people to clean for us and I might do that if I had an outside job. But I will never consider cleaning my home to be 'beneath me.'
Instead, I'll always view washing dishes as a means to serve those I love. Dusting, vacuuming and doing laundry illustrate ways of caring that my family lives in a pleasant, safe environment.
I'm not speaking about an out-of-balance, obsessive-compulsive, walk-all-over-me kind of slavery. No, I'm just saying that housework is such a daily, Monday-through-Sunday, 365 days-a-year sort of thing so why not approach housecleaning as a privilege rather than an annoying burden? How much better to come to the end of my life having enjoyed every day, every task that was mine to do and to have done my best in caring for the family God gave me.
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Quote of the Day: Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
William James (1842 - 1910)
