Welcome to the final post in the May Cozy Life Photo Club series. I have so enjoyed this photo challenge; it was such fun and really got my creative flow going again. As I am writing this post, I have some upbeat and cheery music playing in the background, so I invite you to do the same. Put on some fun tunes and enjoy this post...
As always with these posts, the words are taken from my Instagram page, so if they read more like captions and less like my typical blog post, that's why.
Thank you for joining me here in this space...
Oh, and happy June to you!
♥ ~ ♥ ~ ♥
Day 25 ...Cheerfully Keeping House
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Cleaning and home tasks are a part of everyday life. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task or stress-filled. Over the years, I’ve come to see that Mary Poppins was on to something when she said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” That is certainly true with home chores and cleaning. Making it a game or playing music makes chore time fun and lighthearted. Also, going about home chores gently...
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If you were to walk into our home on a random afternoon, you would still find cat hair here and there, dust would still exist and blankets would be out of place on the couch. The coffee table would have cookbooks and paper and my mom's mystery novels on it. The kitchen counters would have dishes and pots on them because, more than likely, we were just cooking or baking something. There would be signs that there is a family who lives here and really, truly uses their home every day. We are not people who just use our home as a pitstop on the way to and from activities all day and night long. But you would also find a welcome, inviting atmosphere. Candles would be lit, or the diffuser would be going, and some wonderful scents would be filling the air. Kitties would come and greet you and want you to pet them. You would find something to munch on and a cup of tea or glass of lemonade offered to you. I do not say this to boast, but it's just the kind of home I know.
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We want our home to be, most of all, a place where we love to be. And a place where we can welcome in friends and visitors for a casual, gentle time together. We aren't fancy people and our home isn't fancy in the least. It's homey and warm and cozy and that's just how we like it. It's not perfectly clean ever, but we want to keep it nice and tidy. We don't overanalyze our methods or hyperventilate if we skip a few days or tasks here or there. There is always tomorrow and it is fresh and brand new and without mistakes...a new beginning and an opportunity to start again every dawn.
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Cleaning and home tasks are a part of everyday life. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task or stress-filled. Over the years, I’ve come to see that Mary Poppins was on to something when she said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” That is certainly true with home chores and cleaning. Making it a game or playing music makes chore time fun and lighthearted. Also, going about home chores gently...
.
If you were to walk into our home on a random afternoon, you would still find cat hair here and there, dust would still exist and blankets would be out of place on the couch. The coffee table would have cookbooks and paper and my mom's mystery novels on it. The kitchen counters would have dishes and pots on them because, more than likely, we were just cooking or baking something. There would be signs that there is a family who lives here and really, truly uses their home every day. We are not people who just use our home as a pitstop on the way to and from activities all day and night long. But you would also find a welcome, inviting atmosphere. Candles would be lit, or the diffuser would be going, and some wonderful scents would be filling the air. Kitties would come and greet you and want you to pet them. You would find something to munch on and a cup of tea or glass of lemonade offered to you. I do not say this to boast, but it's just the kind of home I know.
.
We want our home to be, most of all, a place where we love to be. And a place where we can welcome in friends and visitors for a casual, gentle time together. We aren't fancy people and our home isn't fancy in the least. It's homey and warm and cozy and that's just how we like it. It's not perfectly clean ever, but we want to keep it nice and tidy. We don't overanalyze our methods or hyperventilate if we skip a few days or tasks here or there. There is always tomorrow and it is fresh and brand new and without mistakes...a new beginning and an opportunity to start again every dawn.
Day 26...Welcome Home
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“Home is the heart of life...Home is where we feel at ease, where we belong, where we can create our surroundings that reflect our tastes and pleasures. Making a home is a form of creativity open to everyone.” (Terence Conran)
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This is our beloved home, Shady Cottage. It’s a welcoming place to us and the place we long and love to be. It looks nearly magical in the wintertime with snow blanketing the ground and icicles hanging off the roof. A true winter wonderland. In the spring, colors of all sorts burst forth...pinks, oranges, white, violet, green, blue. The scents of honeysuckle wrap around the house like a hug from nature. Come summertime, the old trees reaching to the sky provide us with ample shade. And the lush green leaves provide ample beauty for us to delight in. When autumn comes round, the ground becomes the home to thousands upon thousands, or so it seems, of leaves. The colors become deeper and our home becomes cozier. The flickering lights welcome us home, and the soft glow from the front window means that someone is busy in the kitchen preparing something warm and comforting to feast on. Home...it surely is the nicest word there is.
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“Home is the one place in all the world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communication of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any dread or sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.”
(Frederick W. Robertson)
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“Home is the heart of life...Home is where we feel at ease, where we belong, where we can create our surroundings that reflect our tastes and pleasures. Making a home is a form of creativity open to everyone.” (Terence Conran)
.
This is our beloved home, Shady Cottage. It’s a welcoming place to us and the place we long and love to be. It looks nearly magical in the wintertime with snow blanketing the ground and icicles hanging off the roof. A true winter wonderland. In the spring, colors of all sorts burst forth...pinks, oranges, white, violet, green, blue. The scents of honeysuckle wrap around the house like a hug from nature. Come summertime, the old trees reaching to the sky provide us with ample shade. And the lush green leaves provide ample beauty for us to delight in. When autumn comes round, the ground becomes the home to thousands upon thousands, or so it seems, of leaves. The colors become deeper and our home becomes cozier. The flickering lights welcome us home, and the soft glow from the front window means that someone is busy in the kitchen preparing something warm and comforting to feast on. Home...it surely is the nicest word there is.
.
“Home is the one place in all the world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communication of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any dread or sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.”
(Frederick W. Robertson)
Day 27...In My Kitchen
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This is our kitchen sink...where we spend a lot of time. Not just here at the sink, but in our kitchen in general. We’ve always been people who use our kitchen...like, actually use it. Our kitchen isn’t just a part of the house, or there just for show. It’s a place we use the heck out of. There isn’t one day that goes by where we aren’t making or preparing something. (Unless, of course, we’re out of town and obviously, then it would be impossible.)
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Whether it be preparing a simple breakfast of tea and toast, a lunch of leftovers or sandwiches or salads, and dinners of family favorites, our kitchen never gets a break. Then there’s the baking...bread, cakes, brownies, cookies. You name it, we’ve probably baked it. Late night snacks of smoothies, fruit, chips and dip, crackers, toast, etc. And special seasonal celebrations, holidays, tea parties and birthdays. Our kitchen is the center of it all. Whether it be an ordinary Thursday evening or Christmas Day dinner, our kitchen is the special place.
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It rarely is clean or perfectly tidy; that simply isn’t realistic when you use a space on and off throughout the day. My sister has been in the midst of a huge organization project in our kitchen and it is making a big difference. Our goal has always been to have a kitchen that works best for us and our many endeavors there. Thankfully, our current kitchen is quite a bit larger than the one in our old house. Lots more countertop space and more cupboards. We certainly have fun making it ours, a project that is ever ongoing no matter how long you are in a house. It’s a fun, never-ending project! And, a window over the sink is a dream come true for us all!
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What makes your kitchen extra special?
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This is our kitchen sink...where we spend a lot of time. Not just here at the sink, but in our kitchen in general. We’ve always been people who use our kitchen...like, actually use it. Our kitchen isn’t just a part of the house, or there just for show. It’s a place we use the heck out of. There isn’t one day that goes by where we aren’t making or preparing something. (Unless, of course, we’re out of town and obviously, then it would be impossible.)
.
Whether it be preparing a simple breakfast of tea and toast, a lunch of leftovers or sandwiches or salads, and dinners of family favorites, our kitchen never gets a break. Then there’s the baking...bread, cakes, brownies, cookies. You name it, we’ve probably baked it. Late night snacks of smoothies, fruit, chips and dip, crackers, toast, etc. And special seasonal celebrations, holidays, tea parties and birthdays. Our kitchen is the center of it all. Whether it be an ordinary Thursday evening or Christmas Day dinner, our kitchen is the special place.
.
It rarely is clean or perfectly tidy; that simply isn’t realistic when you use a space on and off throughout the day. My sister has been in the midst of a huge organization project in our kitchen and it is making a big difference. Our goal has always been to have a kitchen that works best for us and our many endeavors there. Thankfully, our current kitchen is quite a bit larger than the one in our old house. Lots more countertop space and more cupboards. We certainly have fun making it ours, a project that is ever ongoing no matter how long you are in a house. It’s a fun, never-ending project! And, a window over the sink is a dream come true for us all!
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What makes your kitchen extra special?
Day 28...Dress/Skirt Wearing and Friday Femininity Gathering
Summer is almost here...and it’s finally been warm enough for sundresses! I’m not a hot weather person at all, but sundresses are one of the fun things about summertime.
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This is a long weekend for us, with Memorial Day being on Monday. It’s also sort of a celebration of the unofficial start of summer. Even though there are still a few weeks until the season officially begins, Memorial Day always feels like the start of summertime fun. Cooking out is a must and enjoying our first watermelon of the season. Making and eating a fruity and patriotic dessert. Fresh fruity punch and flavored lemonade and iced teas. All the happy things of summer in one weekend. A celebration of a new season and fun things to look forward to...and enjoy all season long.
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The earth in my corner of the world is lush and green and vibrantly alive. The air smells so fresh and intoxicating with nature in the morning and evenings...it should seriously be bottled up and savoured. There’s so much beauty this time of year, it can almost feel overwhelming. But a good kind of overwhelming...you just want to drink it all up. Everything feels so magical and full of possibilities; it all makes you want to dream and chase after your heart’s leading towards goodness and beauty. Every season has its beauty and magic, and summer is shining now. The dare to dream, follow your heart and breathe in the magic...it’s all there just waiting. Oh, sweet summertime!
Day 29...Front Porch Sitting
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My grandpa would call this “shooting the breeze”...and around here, we spend a lot of time doing this. Summertime means mosquitoes and I am always a major target for those pests, so this time of year sees us enjoying nature a bit less in these chairs in our garden. Usually in the back sitting around our fire pit or nearer to the house in the driveway. Either way, we love some “front porch sitting”...even if we don’t have a proper porch here at Shady Cottage.
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“Simple pleasures: sit outdoors and listen, really listen.” (Anya Raczka)
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An orchestra of crickets as the sun sets, bees buzzing close to the flowers and blooming bushes, squirrels running and playing tag through the trees, a choir of birds singing their second encore as the sun makes her daily debut, the whir of lawnmowers on weekend afternoons, children squealing with delight, music playing on the radio, dogs barking to their furry neighbors, gentle breezes rustling the leaves in the trees, the rhythm of water coming from sprinklers on hot evenings...the sounds of summer from my garden.
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What are some of your favorite summertime sounds?
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My grandpa would call this “shooting the breeze”...and around here, we spend a lot of time doing this. Summertime means mosquitoes and I am always a major target for those pests, so this time of year sees us enjoying nature a bit less in these chairs in our garden. Usually in the back sitting around our fire pit or nearer to the house in the driveway. Either way, we love some “front porch sitting”...even if we don’t have a proper porch here at Shady Cottage.
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“Simple pleasures: sit outdoors and listen, really listen.” (Anya Raczka)
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An orchestra of crickets as the sun sets, bees buzzing close to the flowers and blooming bushes, squirrels running and playing tag through the trees, a choir of birds singing their second encore as the sun makes her daily debut, the whir of lawnmowers on weekend afternoons, children squealing with delight, music playing on the radio, dogs barking to their furry neighbors, gentle breezes rustling the leaves in the trees, the rhythm of water coming from sprinklers on hot evenings...the sounds of summer from my garden.
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What are some of your favorite summertime sounds?
Day 30...Currently Reading
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“If a book is well-written, I always find it too short.” (Jane Austen)
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This is my May reading stack...I’m nearing the final third of all three novels and I’ve just begun a fun nonfiction read. I’ll not say too much more about this stack just yet, because I want to share about my reading goals/challenge for 2021 and this summer very soon. If you’re into bookish things, do keep your eyes open in this space.
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Books in this stack: Down to Earth by Rhonda Hetzel; Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge; The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis; and The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall.
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What have you read this month?
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“If a book is well-written, I always find it too short.” (Jane Austen)
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This is my May reading stack...I’m nearing the final third of all three novels and I’ve just begun a fun nonfiction read. I’ll not say too much more about this stack just yet, because I want to share about my reading goals/challenge for 2021 and this summer very soon. If you’re into bookish things, do keep your eyes open in this space.
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Books in this stack: Down to Earth by Rhonda Hetzel; Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge; The Fiddler by Beverly Lewis; and The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall.
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What have you read this month?
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Mary Oliver said, “You must not ever stop being whimsical.” And that is something I am very passionate about...no matter how old you get, I think it’s so important to keep your imagination alive, to seek out and create magic in your ordinary days, to follow your heart and be happy, to realize that this world is one amazing, beautiful and wild place.
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Romantic, magical, whimsical, beautiful living all go together. You could even say they are the same thing. The older I get, the more I find myself going back and returning to how I was in order to find my truest self. When we are young, we have no awareness to what is considered “normal”. We are just ourselves...wild and free and authentic. But as we grow older, I think we lose ourselves to the world’s ideals of normal. Without even knowing it or realizing it, we become something often so far from who we truly are in our souls.
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This affects how we dress, what we enjoy as hobbies, our favorite music or foods, how we decorate and our styles, and so on. When we were little, we didn’t care what anyone thought. If we liked wearing flowers in our hair, or jumping in rain puddles, or decorating our spaces with paper hearts and cutesy things, we just did it. We were happy and ourselves. Then we grew up, and we let the world get to us.
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Whimsical, magical, beautiful, romantic living is all about returning to our truest selves. It’s about rediscovering who you are. It’s a reawakening of your imagination and returning to wonder and believing that there is magic out there...if we are willing to look for it. It’s about following your heart and not the world’s ideals for normal. It’s about letting that little girl that’s deep inside you find her way to the surface again, inviting you to dance freely, to jump in puddles and wear flowers in your hair.
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Romanticize your life. Seek our magic wherever you go. Cultivate whimsy in ordinary moments. Make beauty out of everyday. To a lot of people, this is all stupid and meaningless. But I’m learning more every day just how important these things are. And I hope to share more on this in the future.
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Well, friends, that is the finale of the May Cozy Life Photo Club series. Regular posts will resume here soon...if you would like to follow me on Instagram, please send me an email and I will send you my link. I've had several people ask about my account and due to privacy reasons, I do not share my link or handle on public pages such as this blog. My account is private and I do screen people's accounts who wish to follow. (Just to make sure there aren't any creeps poking around!)
I hope you are having a lovely start to June! It's been rather cool here the past week or so and we are greatly enjoying it and soaking it up every minute we can. Summer is nearly here and I've got a few posts coming up in the next few weeks...so do come back for those!
Until next time...
may your day be magical and your heart be happy!