Dear friend,
I’m on a 90-day mission and I’d love for you to join me. Surely you’re up for an adventure? You’ve just survived May, after all, which is the mother-of-all-months if you’ve got kids in school. I’m assuming most of you are still wearing your battle gear from end-of-year events and spring sports — let’s take that off, slip into our favorite sundress and woven sandals, and spend the next three months together delighting.
In the coming summer months, the ones filled with ripe tomatoes and bundles of lavender and toes dipped in cool water, I want to invite you to join me in falling in love with your home. Where you are, right now. Not some idealized version… not the one you see in your mind’s eye at the end of your to-do list… but the place where you find yourself in this very moment. Let’s spend the summer falling in love with what we already have.
I won’t call it a challenge. I don’t want to add another to-do on your list. But what I do want is for us to feel nourished in our spaces. So let me ask you this — what nourishes you in your home? And how can you be nourished, right where you’re at, in this coming season?
Whatever your sources of nourishment are (I’m sharing mine below), I want us to devote the coming season to diving deep into those pockets of our homes. I’ll be sharing my own journey as we go. Perhaps I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic, but I find that when the energy of our home shifts from survival to delight, when our eyes are open to the blessings at hand and our hearts gladly accept our daily bread, there is more beauty and joy to be found right now than we realize.
Care to fall back in love over the summer?
Cook Endlessly and Simply
Some of my own happiest moments, the ones that feel full of nourishment, are the ones spent eating a simple summer supper outdoors in the gardens… we tend to linger long into the night, under the strung lights and with the company of the birds singing their final evening songs. The best moments for me are when I rise early, open up the kitchen for the day, and bother to bake a tray of strawberry muffins before the herd of children finally wake. (This delights them!)
I fall back in love with my home each time I tidy the kitchen, wipe off the counters, light a candle, and fill the table with roasted eggplant, grilled chicken thighs, and warm apricots drizzled with honey and walnuts.
Summer in my kitchen is herbs hanging to dry, baskets and jars of seasonal produce strewn about the kitchen, and taking as much time as I’d like. I piddle. I play. And I will aggressively carve out time to keep this at the forefront in the coming season.
Wander
Mostly around my garden with a coffee in hand, but for you this may be a local park or neighborhood green area. Or perhaps the garden of a friend. The price is right and the entertainment is endless. So many of my problems melt gently into the background of sky-high holly hocks and grazing lambs; I find the frog song of June and July to be absolutely worth the cost of admission. The only tip I can offer is to wander with a basket in hand. Pick up acorns and roll them through your fingertips. Admire the spiky tops and smooth bottoms. In my basket, I’ve been known to gather eggs, flower pods, cherry tomatoes, abandoned bird nests, a daily herb bundle, and even cool insects to show the kids. Sometimes I think the worlds all gone to hell-in-a-handbasket… and then I wander aimlessly. I reorient in my wandering and I am reminded of the small and good gifts that surround us all.
Last Sunday, we spent the entire afternoon wandering the woods for morels. High up in the mountains, not a screen in sight, we wandered endlessly through toppled trees and blankets of pine needles to find mushrooms. The wandering was even more delightful than the full baskets we returned home with.
Fuss Over My Favorites
People and plants and recipes alike! Future-me promised today-me that I would take the time to fuss over a perfectly cooked ratatouille, make endless bruschetta, and finally put that layer of moss at the base of my houseplants. I want to absolutely fuss over my children — let’s go swimming, let’s schedule that hair appointment I’ve been pushing off, let me stop what I’m doing and paint your nails. Yes, I can be bothered to stop my weeding to make a perfectly iced latte and I can most certainly be bothered to hand-water my window boxes filled with hot pink geraniums and variegated sweet potato vines. I’ll wash the windows, straighten the rug, spot clean the floor from popsicle drips, put out bouquets of fresh flowers, and wind the chiming clock. I’ll pick my favorite tomatoes in my pajamas.
I’ll fuss over what I have as if tomorrow it could — poof — be gone.
Care For It
The bathroom sink leaks and my bedside table was already in rough shape when I bought it second-hand seven years ago. I don’t want to buy new ones, or pay a plumber, so this will be a season of caring for our little home in the best way we can given the resources we can spare. I’ve been eyeing air-vents that need to be painted and reinstalled for over 18 months, a hundred books are stacked on my staircase needing to find a home on the bookshelf, and my freezer door is currently crusted shut from black bean juice (y’all, you can’t make this stuff up.) Point being: sweeping off my porch is free and reminds my house that I’m here to care for it. In this way, we serve each other.
She’s old and crusty, but for the time, she’s mine. And I want to love her well.
Fill It
Even though it’s chaos in the moment, filling my home brings it life! It reminds me of all the best pieces of life; bounty, joy, community, celebration, and fellowship. I can picture it: the pizza oven has been heating up for hours, Stuart faithfully tending to the large pile of coals tucked away in the corner. Meanwhile, I’ve been in the kitchen, kneading pizza dough in my biggest bowl, filling the kitchen table with vegetables from the garden and sauce from the pantry. Italian Cafe music dances through the air, a car pulls in the driveway, and a handful of my favorite people pile out. We’ll eat off paper plates and the floors will get dirty and even still, we will end the night feeling far richer than our bank accounts declare.
But the bounty won’t stop with people. Gleaning and harvesting and foraging are in their prime this season; the elderberries are strewn about the hillsides, the cherries drip from trees, and even the rosehips left behind from the high summer roses are cause to fill a jar.
Enjoy Times of Silence
I fall back in love with my home, with my life, when I carve out precious pockets for silence. Primarily (because I do have four children after all), this looks like sitting with my morning coffee in bed silently. But because of the beautiful season at hand, it can also look like hanging in the hammock or laying in my swimsuit out by the pool. It can look like a short walk in a place I find lovely, a moment of rest with an iced tea, or even a drive into town for errands with just my thoughts for company. I notice that when I allow for moments of silence in my home, my mind is allowed to wander, sort, and solve.
We’ve been on the homestead, tucked away in our little crusty cottage on our little piece of land, for eleven years now. In that time — would you believe it — not a single day has been perfect. Some of our projects remain 80% done, others are in their third-iteration to fit our family’s changing needs, and even more have been abandoned for time or money or motivation or all of the above. But this is normal life. And even tucked inside, there are many great gifts! I look forward to spending the summer with you, reminding us both of what goodness there is to be had right here and now.
Love,
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