Looks Like Home

It’s been a good Monday. All three shirts came through the laundry which seems funny…I washed on Saturday. Apparently I missed these. That’s fine, they’re good to go again.

We’re having occasional stove fires now. I love this season. We have the best firewood possible this year. Because it is quite dry or cured as they say. A little bit of dry birch with the paper bark still on it will often get my little carefully laid fire going.

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I’m needing these ordinary home scenes this week. They provide a level of steadying and normal that we need in crazy times. Along with prayer and chores and having each other.

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I seldom, almost never, make granola. But I found a simple recipe and method that doesn’t involve fancy ingredients that are not in my pantry. I get double pleasure out of this little win. It’s beautiful on the shelf and it’s breakfast.

And when I need a dose of beautiful, home ordinary there’s this Christmas cactus blooming its heart out on a west windowsill. My mom-in-law often kept a plant like this one. She knew how to get it to bloom. For mine to bloom is purely an accident of randomness. I’m much better at killing them. Mine has only fifty blooms, I think. Yes, I counted them. That’s part of the game. Mom’s always had over a hundred blooms. She kept hers in a cold back bedroom, which provided her great excuse to give me a little tour of her home to show me her cactus. “It’s actually Dad’s.” She would always say. Now I wonder if Dad felt like he owned a Christmas cactus.

I’m scribbling when I should be trying to fall asleep. I almost never “fall” asleep. Drift off maybe, but yeah, prayer comes first. Here’s hoping for sweet dreams for all of us. Good night.