Every now and then, you stumble across something that cheers up your day, and makes the hum-drum ponderings that fill your head get swept aside for more cheery thoughts.   Aren’t those great?

This weekend, we were rather busy, and still had not fully unpacked from last weekend’s Drum and Splash campout.  One reason is the fact we are leaving on Thursday to meet my parents, grandmother, and sister (+ family) at the beach for a 4-day vacation on Long Beach Island, NJ.

So Saturday and Sunday, we mowed the lawn (partially), ran errands (most of them), got materials to enclose our back deck into a sun-room porch, and did the dishes.   The table was still stacked with the sort of things that get piled up on “an available horizontal surface!”, and the laundry was half-folded near the suitcases.  I’m sure you homeowners know the look.   Cluttered.

We had a friend over for dinner, plus my mother-in-law for her birthday, and found myself spending the half hour before they arrived worredly glancing around the yard, shoving table-stuff into a box for sorting “later”, and lamenting the fact the back of the house still looked like crap where the siding came off in a windstorm.

Meanwhile, my son and I were picking a few quarts of blackberries, and he wanted to swim in his pool, and the dog followed us around with her frisbee to get thrown.

Then, today, I read the following from Sharon Astyk.

And some of it truly could be a lot prettier than it is – we could stack the wood faster, we could cut the grass more often – it is just that doing that would come out of something else.  Right now the wood is sitting where it is because, well, we haven’t gotten to it yet – I’ve been making the cherries into cherry jam instead.  I can make beauty blossom on the shelves in my kitchen as red jars fill the shelves – but only at the price of the rathole look out on the driveway ;-) .

This put everything in perspective.   Instead of seeing the half-mowed yard, I thought of the basket of berries we had just set in the kitchen for dessert tonight.   Instead of the ramshackle siding, I thought of the nearby pile of lumber and screening that will replace it next week.   And the stuff on the table?  It will get sorted out, next rainy day or cloudy evening.

Our place may look unkept at a glance, but there’s a lot going on under the surface.   Within the towering grass is clover flowers, harvested daily for bunnies and teas.   It’s a pretty nice place, now that I look at it again.

:)

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