Dandelions and Daydreams

Family traditions are often centered around holidays, but it is also possible to create family traditions out of weekly routines.  The traditions that are created out of weekly routines are ingrained so much deeper than the ones that are centered around holidays that the week just doesn’t feel right without those routines. One tradition that both Brenton’s and my family had was Friday night pizza night.  Is it possible to start the weekend without pizza?

When I was little, we would make homemade pizza and split a coke between the five of us.  I remember that she set the table with her fancy dishes, I almost remember it being her wedding china and using the stemware for splitting the coke. That was our family tradition for celebrating the weekend.  As I grew up, appetites got bigger and just a little swallow of Coke wasn’t satisfying to the sweet tooth of three teenagers, my mom discovered $5 pizza from Little Ceasar’s Pizza.  The China dishes got packed away while we were building a house and the fancy dishes meant we ate off off the corningware [sometimes] rather than off of paper plates.  The boys had no interest in drinking out of stemware, but Mom and I still set the table with it.  We had to do what we could to keep them civilized.

I’ve always kept this family tradition in mind while I am making my weekly menu.  For a long time I struggled with incorporating pizza night into our weekly routine.  We don’t have Little ceasars and their $5 pizza, so I wanted to do homemade (versus paying $20 for a pizza meal).  I was stuck in a pepperoni rut and I hated the cost of packaged pepperoni.

About a month ago, I checked out a pizza recipe book from the library.  I was looking for ideas for different toppings.  Brenton read the book and took over cooking for pizza night!  He doesn’t give himself much credit, but my husband is an excellent cook, and what better tradition to celebrate the weekend and date night than to let my husband cook pizza for our family.

What’s your family tradition for celebrating the weekend?  Do you have any weekly traditions? I’m in search of more family traditions to incorporate in our lives.

Today turned into one of those days when I feel empty and stretched.  My heart feels lonely and sad like someone scraped it over with sandpaper.  It’s the kind of day where what I want to do is inhale copious amounts of chocolate in an effort to soothe my restless soul.  I find myself in front of the refrigerator often.  I keep coming back looking for something that will make me feel better.  I’m lucky that we don’t keep many sweets in the house and leftover beans and rice just doesn’t work as a salve quite the same as chocolate cake.

Then I open the refrigerator again and with that cool burst of air comes a bit of clarity.  I’m not trying to fill a physical hunger and food won’t fill a soul hunger.  The good feelings that I get from chocolate might help for a short while, but when the chocolate is gone the ache will still be there.

I turn away from the fridge and find my journal.  I open it to a blank page and pour out my heart to the Father.  I make a cup of coffee and read my Bible.  While I am fellowshipping with my God who is Love, I find the ache disappearing and being replaced with a peace and trust.  Everything will be okay.

Sometimes I can just feel God smiling down on me.  Yesterday, we secured a new rental.  The new apartment is a cute 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment.  It is full of light and sunshine.  I can’t decide if I am most excited about having a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, or a full bathtub (our current apartment only has a shower stall).

Yesterday, after I took advantage of that bathtub, I was laying out on the back porch of the new apartment drying my hair in the setting sun.  The backyard was alive with birds chirping.  The tulips in the flower beds are pushing up through the leaves that were raked over them last fall.

In the lot next door, some movement caught my eye.  For the next 20 minutes, I sat and watched two feisty hummingbirds fighting over a plum tree in bloom.  As the sun set behind the mountains, I could feel God smiling.

Wildflowers are always the first, hopeful signals of spring. In Georgia, the first flowers of spring are usually the daffodils and the peaches. A walk through the woods in late March will reveal and abundance of blossoms. The beauty pageant of wildflowers will continue through the summer and into the fall with each new week trying to outdo the week before in both color and fragrance.

One of my favorite haunts is the periwinkle farm. At some point in history. this place had a cabin with a fireplace at each end. I can almost hear the echoes of children’s laughter ringing off the hilltops. The keeper of this homestead loving planted her garden (you can actually still see the level spot where a vegetable garden once stood). To add a bit more beauty she planted a few daffodil bulb here and some periwinkle there. There was a pink flower bush over near the well (I’ve only caught it in bloom once). The hillside was terraced for farming, but it’s been so long that the farm has grown over with pine trees.

Most of the time, old house sites make me sad. The fallen down houses are forgotten, ignored. Even if I leave an old falling down house, I want my mark on this world to be flowers that bloom every spring reminding everyone that winter is over. Whoever planted the periwinkle at this home site definitely left her mark on the world. The periwinkle continues to spread and cover more area. Some day the whole area will be covered.

Apartment dwellers live with the unique challenge of creating a personal style when you can’t do a major renovation. In addition to that, apartments are often just a place you are passing through on the way to home ownership. In every apartment I have lived I had to create a welcoming refuge with stark white walls, a minimal number of holes added to the wall, and a minuscule budget.

There are a few basic guidelines for creating a personal space in an apartment. Creating a home in someone else’s house begins with acceptance of the things that you have no control over, and then decorate around the things you can control. The goal of apartment decorating is to display your favorite things, add your favorite colors, and generally create a space that says “you.” The benefit of apartment decorating is that you can take all the stuff with you when you move to create a personal space in your next home too.

Accept the Things I cannot Change

The first step in creating a home in an apartment is to accept all the things that you cannot change. In my apartment, it’s white walls, dirty carpet, evidence of shoddy paint jobs inside, and peeling paint outside. There is nothing that I can do about it. I’ve done what I can (cleaned the carpet), and let the rest go because I can’t change it.

Change the Things I can.

Eliminate Clutter This is the where good home decoration begins. It’s probably the most difficult part, but remember the first step in creating a welcoming refuge is creating order. For decluttering help, check out FLYlady.net.

Incorporate Color. There are lots of places where you can incorporate color to counteract those white walls: Fresh flowers, slip covers, pillows, throw blankest, rugs, posters, art work, etc.

Full Spectrum Lighting. I recommend using full spectrum bulbs throughout your house, especially during the daylight-deprived winter. I saw full spectrum compact fluorescent lights (CFL ). Use floor lamps wherever possible. Floor lamps are easier on the eyes than overhead. Get a dimmer switch for your bedside lamp to help you wind down at the end of the day. Whenever possible, take advantage of natural light.

Window Coverings. This is another great place to add color to your house. I like having double layer curtains. The inner layer is sheer curtains to let the light through while maintaining privacy. The second layer is a coordinating color, but is solid fabric. The solid curtains can be closed at night to hold in heat in your house (in the winter) and to add to your privacy at night.

These are just a few ways to turn a house or an apartment into your home. Home is a condition of the heart, more than a condition of the home.