Tag Archives: home
Autobiography, journal, scrapbook
“Each of us is eccentric because each of us is unique and no one else is like us. We can best express our individuality in unusual, uncommon ways at home. Our home is an autobiography, a journal, a scrapbook…Living at home is a dynamic, creative process.” — Alexandra Stoddard I really miss the days when …
Bloom indoors
“I bloom indoors in winter like a forced forsythia; I come in to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year’s planting.” – Annie Dillard One of the best things about being an adult at Christmas is …
In familiar surroundings
“As much as I love to travel and see new things, I’m also a homebody. No matter how far I wander, I’m always eager to get back to my own nest. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as the little surprises that can pop up in familiar surroundings. I find a great deal of pleasure right …
All about us
“It seems to me that people are forever traveling great distances, and journeying to strange countries, to see things that, if they only knew it, exist beside their own doorstep…Whether one goes to nature for truth, or for beauty, for knowledge or for relaxation, these things can be found in a yard in the city …
The past is beautiful
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” ― Virginia Woolf Reading this quote, I can only wish that Woolf had thought of these words before she took …
Wherever I went
“I had always believed that I left a bit of me wherever I went. I also believed that I took a bit of every place with me…And the only possible explanation I could find for that feeling was that a spirit existed in many of the places I visited, and a spirit existed in me …
Outdoors in
“Bring the outdoors in. Plants make for a happy home.” – Mr Jason Grant There were a lot of ways my mother created a happy home for us, and one of them was the way she loved plants, indoors and out. She was often joked about spoken of in regard to her composting and organic …
Like an inheritance
“Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend. Don’t ask for advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love …
Bring us back home
“If we had a feminism that caused us to get out of the house, is there not also room for feminism that would bring us back home, so that our homes would reflect ourselves and would once more have soul?” — Ginette Paris “It’s acceptable to call yourself a “stay at home mom or dad,” …
In the yard
“My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass.’ ‘We’re not raising grass,’ Dad would reply. ‘We’re raising boys.’” — Harmon Killebrew This is a perfect time of year for this quote. The All-Star break is coming up, and many lawns …
Home for the holidays
“Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…” — Al Stillman As of last night, we are HOME. Though we are exhausted, I can’t remember a time when we’ve been happier to be here! Thanks for being here with us! One year ago today Like of each thing This post was first published seven …
This is where
This is the bright homein which I live,this is whereI askmy friendsto come,this is where I wantto love all the thingsit has taken me so longto learn to love. This is the templeof my adult alonenessand I belongto that alonenessas I belong to my life. There is no houselike the house of belonging. — David …
Home is not where
“Home is not where, it is whom.” -Christianne Dettmann As most readers have figured out by now, I’m no longer posting two weeks in advance, but taking it day by day as I am able. Since my days are mostly spent in hospitals lately, I have a bit of a one-track mind. In any case, …
Don’t pass it by
“There it is round you. Don’t pass it by—the immediate, the real, the only, the yours.” — Henry James Until this year, this would be a typical sight for a Saturday in November; Jeff mowing the grass for perhaps the last time until spring. I took this photo seven years ago, but even if I …
A combination
“Home is a combination of human will and divine grace.” — Alexandra Stoddard Whether we live alone or with family, whether we open our doors to traveling friends and adopted animals, or prefer a more solitary life, it takes substantial effort to create and maintain a home. Despite what we sometimes refer to as modern conveniences, the …
The incredible gift
“The incredible gift of the ordinary! Glory comes streaming from the table of daily life.” — Macrina Wiederkehar One of the hardest things about the past year has been the need to cancel no fewer than three scheduled visits to see my parents. It’s good that our grandson happened to be born in Atlanta, so I finally …
Carry your childhood with you
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” — Tom Stoppard Here it is: photographic evidence that a lot of things about me haven’t changed in nearly half a century. I still love cats. I still love yellow. I still wear my hair in a bun often (no wisecracks about librarians here). And the camera, well, …
An honor to live
“I am grateful for my daily life; it is an honor to live it. My day-to-day routine holds many mysteries, even though it has become ordinary and comfortable to me.” — Steve Deger No matter where we travel, Jeff and I always try to get off the tourist path for at least a few hours, …
Firesides on winter evenings
“The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cozy parlor firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of …
Like a fire
“A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out.” – Eudora Welty The house pictured above is the place I will always think of as my childhood home. I’ve returned there, just to drive by it, several times since my parents first moved away more than twenty years after …
The grand finale
“Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale.”— Lauren Destefano The weather here is finally cooling off enough that we are getting some splendid fall color, though it was still over 70 degrees several …
Someone’s home
“Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone’s home and backyard.” — Vera Nazarian I love staying in bed and breakfast inns, especially if the hosts live in or very near the home where the guests stay. I don’t go for the pricey or frilly …
Absolutely, positively, certainly 2016
I’m still here. Hope you’re still there! Another reblog; this one was originally posted on November 27, 2012: “In our rush for newer, quicker, better, we seem to be missing out on what we fundamentally crave, a calmer, gentler, sweeter and more gracious life. Is it easy to achieve such a life? Definitely not. Is …
Defeat Despair 