See this porch? See the posts on this porch?
These posts have been in need of a coat of paint ever since they were installed. They’ve patiently waited, standing in place like valiant soldiers, doing their job, holding up our porch roof.
This spring I’ve finally felt well enough to tackle the project! That being said, it’s taken me longer than I anticipated. I *hoped*hoped*hoped* to have them finished before harvest hit and that absolutely didn’t happen. Between some strong sunshine and even stronger wind, harvest was upon us a few days earlier than we’d anticipated. I doubt I would have finished them before, anyway.
Thus, porch post painting is one of my on-going projects right now.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m hoping to possibly get them all paint-covered by the end of this week.
Watering garden plants and flowers and flower pots is another “summer project” right now. The grass keeps creeping into my garden and so sporadic weeding also falls into my project pile. The weeds are rather winning, in case you were wondering. Oh, it’s not too bad, but we have a couple of spots that grew wildly away from us during the busy days of harvest. I’ve never had a spotless weed-free garden in EVER, so I don’t foresee that starting now.
In fun news and pretty stuff news, I was excited to start using my new Purposeful Planner in the white leatherette. I mentioned it last week. It’s a daily format and my other one is a weekly format. I’m finding pros and cons to both. I {want} to make comparisons and jot them down sometime and see if one format comes out above the other. I seriously love the beauty of these planners.
I am so blessed by beauty in our world. This fact has really become plain to me in the last couple of years. I feel like I’m slow at realizing things or capturing a concept from my life into a vision or a statement of what blesses my life and *hopefully* ends up blessing others.
I subscribed to the Magnolia Journal magazine. I like to leaf through magazines, but I have only subscribed a very few times over the years to magazines. I talked about The Magnolia Story in this post and how much I enjoyed reading the book. When I saw they were launching the magazine, I rolled around the idea of subscribing and after a while I decided I wanted to give it a try. My first issue arrived last week and I have quite enjoyed it.
Ok. All THAT to say THIS. On page 33 of the magazine, Joanna says, “During that time of quiet and rest, it became really clear to me what my strength and passion is. I LOVE CREATING BEAUTY. That’s my lane.”
I’m not Joanna Gaines. {Obvs.} BUT, this part of me, inside, gave this happy little shout when I read the bold-typed words. I agree! I love creating beauty, too. What is beautiful to me isn’t always beautiful to other people, but I believe there’s always a kindred spirit or two who lilt into our story and gasp because they see the beauty just the way YOU do!!!
Still reading The Kindness Challenge. It’s a great read! But hard.
Oh, I keep forgetting to add a Kid Pick!! I like showing a children’s book, because I love them. I even have two right now I want to photograph and include. I feel very off my groove.
I have a Pinterest board over here of my Kid Picks if you want to browse it!
I read The Heart of Marriage earlier this year. {over in this post} The Gift of Friendship is also by Dawn Camp and is a compilation of stories from a variety of authors. I have really, really enjoyed these books!
I’ve long loved Melissa Michaels books and Instagram and her blog, The Inspired Room was one of the very first blogs I ever read.
She has a story in The Gift of Friendship and a few lines jumped out at me and that whole “Yes, me too!” inside-of-me-thing did it’s whole happy yell-and dance combo again.
Melissa shares a conversation she has with her hairstylist and these lines stood out to me.
“We confess to each other that if you stop at our houses on short notice, our heart is to welcome you into the imperfectly lovely, everyday chaos of pets and family. But when we invite you over, we will enjoy blessing you with a special evening that might include a clean (enough) house, good smelling candles, and a simple, but pretty table set for you to enjoy as we sit down to get to know each other over a simple, but tasty dinner.”
Yes, yes and yes!!! This is me all the way. I’ve read quite a bit about opening our homes, embracing our mess, welcoming others in, fellowship versus entertaining and on and on. I get it. I do. Really. But it also gets me. It’s guilted me. Because Honestly?? I enjoy the beauty. Setting the table with pretty dishes. Filling a few jars with buds. Having time to pull out pretty serving dishes or fix food in a pleasing array. That’s one of my favorite parts of inviting friends over. And then I let it get stolen from me because someone else decides to label it ENTERTAINING and stamp it as a bad thing. And that’s so silly of me!!! We all have our preferences and things we enjoy. And I don’t mind at all if it isn’t your thing to break out the good China. I pull out paper plates many times too!
Yet, it refreshed me to read Melissa’s description because I feel exactly the same way.
I don’t love to have people drop in. There. I said it. I’m an introvert through and through. I’m pushing forty and I just don’t think I’m going to wake up one morning and be different than I am. This is how God designed me. He has a purpose and a plan for us all along with the personality He’s woven into our bones.
There are days when I know I could love being a party planner or event setter-upper. {Is that a thing?} 🙂 I love all the beauty and detail. And then sometimes when it’s actually time for the event, my introvert self wants to go curl up on a shelf and watch from afar.
{Please!!! If you relate, would you come curl up on the shelf quietly beside me???} {Although, then I might to chat. Because if you are a kindred spirit and there’s just two or three or four of us, I can comfortably giggle and laugh and talk a blue streak.}
LOOK!!
I’m so delighted. My niece crafted this from clay and painted it and sent it to me.
I love it so much.
It captures some of my favorites in real life and for my blog. Books and family, wheat and farm, and cozy hot drinks!
My book stack and another fun gift!
During harvest I cam home one late afternoon and found perched on my planner {in my very messy kitchen}, this cute little crown containing a hand written thinking-of-you note from a much-loved friend. It was a definite day-brightener.
Isn’t it so adorable and such a great photo prop?!!
Oh, and I’ll share two more things that God poured out on me through kind and wonderful friends during harvest. Both blessed me so much!
I keep feeling it impressed on my heart that little things we do for others, kindnesses we give, matter much more than we may ever know. I don’t know that the knowing of this has automatically made me kinder, but it has made me the better for it. Our actions matter.
To be very real and a little negative in tone, I’ve also had a couple of things happen in the last month that felt very unkind and this in turn also brought me back full circle to how much a kind gesture, NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR LARGE, does matter.
All of this rolled together also prompted this post over on Instagram!
Oh goodness me!! This post is getting lengthy! Lengthier than this middle-aged blogger meant when she started tip-tip-tapping away! Ha!
SO……………………..
IN the ABOVE photo. See the super-cute necklace? WELL.
Pam from WiReD Boutique gifted and delivered it to my door during harvest. {She gifted it to me, not my door. I’m betting my door would have liked it too, though.} 😉 She was able to slip in for a bit and chat and it was a super fun refresh during a busy season.
We’ve been friends through Instagram and she sponsored a giveaway to her shop for us, and we’d made plans one other time to meet for coffee and we’d had to cancel, so this was the first time we got to meet “for real” if that’s what you call it!!
She has a super kind heart and her Instagram and jewelry bring inspiration to life!
Another friend smoked and prepared some turkey and pork for us and slipped it into our freezer. I was humbled and grateful and all the feelings!!!
This world contains a Lot, a Lot of beautiful people who excel at blessing! Now, I must work at passing it forward.
What has especially blessed you lately? I’d love to hear!!
OH!!! One more thing friends!! There’s a super-fun giveaway going on right now. Head here to enter. It’s handmade Bible tabs and they are pretty!
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017