January - a month of gratitude...

 One of the things I have decided to do on the blog this year is to give each month it's own sub-theme, and that will always be something which will tie in with our main theme for 2024, Joy in the Ordinary. 

Let's begin the month by turning our hearts away from self, and showing gratitude to others.

January is a wonderful month for looking back over the previous year to make decisions about what to eliminate from our lives, and what to give more time to. It is also a good time to remember those who were there for us during the last year and let them know how much that meant to us. 

From childhood, to well into my forties, it was common to send a thank you card to those who had in some way touched our lives for the better. It was common to write real letters by hand. It was normal to send cards on special occasions. It was natural to make time for all kinds of correspondence that required adding a postage stamp and a walk to the red posting box. And wasn't it so lovely to open our own mail boxes and find a card or letter lovingly sent from family or friends? 

Being the first week of January I decided that showing gratitude by mail would be a nice way to begin the month, so I have spent time the past few days creating a set of stationary you might like to download, print up, and use for just such a purpose. It's a free gift from me to you!

There are two sets to choose from and both are included in your free download - a Scriptural set, as well as one without Biblical reference. 

In each set you'll find decorative writing paper, small pocket cards to add in a letter, and greeting cards. 

You could also print up a few and make little gift packs to use as presents during the year. I love things like this because they are easy to post in an envelope and that's rather helpful for those of us who are watching the pennies in 2024. 

I made gift packs with the small cards, greeting cards and envelopes. Some were printed on white heavy weight paper, and others on some lovely lemon paper from a coloured bundle I bought in 2010. Fortunately I found matching lemon envelopes too. 

The sprays of watercolour carnations and forget-me-nots which feature on the stationary items, remind me of Nana. Her wedding ring was a band of gold forget-me-nots, and she grew carnations in the summer. When my husband was at University he did some extra work in the semester breaks to save up and buy me my very own gold forget-me-not ring. It was the most beautiful surprise!!

When we lived in Esperance (Western Australia) back in 2007-9, Blossom and I would often window shop on sunny afternoons before spending a 'girlie' hour at the local tea rooms which overlooked the ocean. One such afternoon we discovered a pretty blue forget-me-not mug in the window of the jewellers, and it was on clearance. Well, my heart skipped a beat and I bought it. To this day, whenever I use it my mind drifts back to the simple days of my childhood with Nana and Pop. 

Forget-me-nots really are the perfect floral embellishment to a gratitude card or letter, I think. Life today moves far too quickly, with social media, television, and even conversations rushing by without much thought of their purpose...which makes us forget a little too easily, the things we should hold close to our hearts, the needs of others in our prayers, and how we could better have used that wasted time. Yes, I do believe gratitude and forget-me-nots go hand in hand. 

Use the links below to download the Gratitude Stationary files... 

DOWNLOAD the A4 size Gratitude file

DOWNLOAD the Letter size Gratitude file

The New Year clean has begun...

The new year has me cleaning the house, one room at a time, to remove what's not needed and move everything else (not bolted down) around to a more purposeful position. I began at the back of the house in our small laundry, which runs directly off the kitchen and opens out to the backyard. It gets the afternoon sun rather fiercely, and needs a curtain to cover the smaller window, but as I am still not sure what fabric from my stash to use for that purpose, I am yet to achieve that goal. However, it was good to clean and scrub the drawers of cleaning items, rags and gloves with vinegar and water, and put things in order once more.

On the other side of the laundry room, I finally went through all the random jars I'd collected and chose to keep only the best jars for filling with jam. It's summer here in Australia and this month is the time for making large batches of plum and vanilla jam (our favourite) to see us through the next year, with a few extra jars as gifts. They were scrubbed exhaustively, dried, and capped ready-and-waiting. 

The remainder of the space was well scrubbed, and things like the tub of Eco Store washing powder topped up and two teaspoons of eucalyptus oil added and shaken through. Eucalyptus is a wonderful antibacterial for the wash. I clean my washing machine with vinegar and water in a spray bottle so that I can scrub the gasket with only a rag before running the machine on an empty cycle. 

The next day I began in the kitchen, pulling everything out of the cupboards and off the shelves, again washing with vinegar and water. It was wonderful having all the surfaces, drawers and shelving done, and a few more things removed from them. I tend to declutter regularly through the year, but do not donate anything unless I am very sure we won't be using it, so a few items find their way to the donation box in my car boot each time I do a deep clean of the kitchen. 

Now I need to wash the front of the cupboards and drawers, clean the windows, wash the curtains, and get the double sink sparkling...but not till Monday. It's Friday afternoon as I write this, and before hubby arrives home from work I plan to make a spanakopita for dinner, and something for dessert - though exactly what I have not yet decided. 

I hope you are doing well in this first week of a new year, and that should you be struggling in any area of your life that you remember to lay your burdens at the feet of Jesus and pray for His help to get you through. He will always be our Rock and an ever present help in times of trouble. Don't hold back, dear ones, call out to Him for all your needs.

But remember too, that He is our provider and gift-giver, so offer your prayers of praise and gratitude to our Lord regularly. 

God bless, and God willing we shall chat in the next post. Let me know what you've been doing around home this past week, and if you have a specific gratitude to share with myself and other readers. You may inspire us. 

Oh, before I go, please receive my gratitude for all your prayers for our Blossom. She's still on antibiotics and not yet recovered from the pneumonia, but she is definitely improving. You ladies are wonderful...

Hugs

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Contentment, gratitude and tiny habits...

 

Have you noticed that when we decide to focus on a particular attitude adjustment, habit or character refinement, that numerous opportunities to be challenged in that area seem to arise with regularity?

Let me share one of the things God deposited on my heart one late September day in 2018, just after we moved into this home. That still small voice told me to make this home a house of praise. Immediately I decided that music and singing would be a big part of life here, and though we've gone through changing seasons of mountains and valleys these past few years, beautiful hymns and inspired instrumental music have very much become a grounding point at the beginning and end of each day. 

But the other night I could not sleep, so I crept out of the bedroom to sit in the faintly moonlit living room, and gave the Lord time to speak once more into my heart...because obviously He needed my complete attention, away from the daily rhythm of homemaking.

 

What had I been missing during the day as I read His Word, prayed while cooking and cleaning, pondered problems as I stitched and knitted? 

Well, it was all about contentment and gratitude. And praise.

Not the praise of lifting my voice in song.

But praise in gratitude for all we have, for all HE has provided, for His protective hand on our lives and for always, always being a loving 'ear to hear' when we're treading another valley. 

I released this stitchery back in 2016 and as I sketched the design, then adding fabric and thread to create the final piece, I knew without doubt that the contentment I was craving would only come if I practiced heart-felt gratitude before God. 

So, my little rendezvous with the Father in the middle of the night this week was in fact Him reminding me what I already knew but had somehow slipped from mind...and it also confirmed why I felt led to make the theme of the blog this year "A Year of Contentment". 

I've contemplated a number of ways discontent has entered my heart, and as I listed them during the night, the Holy Spirit changed each one to a praise of gratitude...

# I'm only 5'1" and our dining table is too high so I need to have a pillow on my chair in order to eat. I don't do any work at the table for the same reason.

Jennifer, how blessed you are to have a lovely table that seats your family, that brings all of you together for tea parties, celebrations, meals.

# Being this height I am constantly needing to carry a stool around to reach into cupboards, the linen press and the pantry as the previous owner was tall and built the kitchen accordingly.

Jennifer, how blessed you are to have a pantry stocked with nourishing ingredients to feed your loved ones and visitors. How blessed you are to have ample bedding and towels and linens for your needs. How blessed you are to have appliances which make your day to day life easier.

# We have a very old bathroom and shower, and living here in the tropics, the presence of mould is a constant enemy which must be attended to.

Jennifer, how blessed you are to have clean running water with which to wash, cleanse and drink.

# Three years after the floods, we still have bare concrete floors in the main bedroom and my husband's study, as we had to remove the sodden moulding carpets in both rooms back then.

Jennifer, how blessed you are that your dear husband has worked to replace all the drainage under the house, installed two new pump wells and pumps, replaced all the pipes from the pumps along both sides of your property, repaired and replaced damaged guttering, and installed many other flood-retardant measures in and around your home. You saw the difference this made recently when so many in your town faced flooding once more. 

You see what I mean?

My grumblings blocked out gratitude, and if gratitude is lacking, so is contentment. And friends, I am longing for a contented mindset in every area of my life - except my relationship with the Lord. When it comes to that, let me never think I know enough or have enough, but let me always long for a closer walk with Him. 

I have this pattern in my shop (it's one of the Gentle Domesticity series), rather a timely reminder. 

Maybe you'd like to stitch it as a reminder, maybe you won't need one - but if you do, pop over HERE 

Every little bit...

We've had a lot of rain the past few weeks and the weeds grow faster than the garden plants - why is that, I keep asking myself. It's back breaking to keep pulling them, but we do it anyhow. 

When Blossom gave me the three small pots of miniature roses for Christmas I placed cardboard under them as that's the easiest way to stop the weeds, but we had no mulch to add on top (even better weed deterrent when used together)...and then rain, and more rain, and thousands of baby cane toads (dreadful pest and they kill native frogs) all through the grass and weeds, and jumping in the swimming pool. Keeping on top of things waned with hubby only having one day off a week, and my inability to cope with our tropical heat after 9am.

However, I've been reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, and going slowly through the chapters because I like to think about what I read, and not run ahead with ideas which may or may not be followed through in practice. 

Atomic means very tiny, and I am discovering that very tiny habits can make a huge difference to life. My first habit to change was swimming. I swim most days, but then I can miss a week, which might turn in to two because I fall out of the habit. You see its not safe to walk around our neighbourhood, so swimming is my daily exercise...when I remember.

For about six weeks now, I have been swimming my laps every single morning after breakfast, and occasionally I'll do another set of laps before dinner if hubby is late home. It's become a habit that has improved my breathing, healed my back pain, and greatly improved my overall energy as each week the number of laps increases. I do around 360 to 450 strokes a day depending on whether I swim once or twice, and I do this even in the rain. 

So back to those potted roses and the weeds. Whilst we simply don't have the time or climate to spend hours in the garden each day, the regular atomic habit of doing a small section of the yard in the coolest part of the day is reaping results. 

We bought more sugar cane mulch (this is the sugar cane region of Australia and it's readily available) and every morning I weed one small section, lay it with cardboard, and then the mulch. 

A bit like the hare and the tortoise really. Slow and steady gets you over the finish line. 

Of course our finish line is way off, but it's heartening to see results from 20-30 minutes a day. 

Fertilising the pots and adding new mulch also protects them from the heat.

Afternoon downtime, once the chores are done and before I begin dinner prep, is a mix of reading, knitting and stitching a new pattern...and possibly a Poirot or Marple on the telly.

Tomorrow I am picking up Cully May and Rafaella to bring here for the day, so on my to-do list this afternoon are new curtains for their cubby house, and a bit of baking. 

I hope you're growing in contentment. 

It's not really something you can accomplish and always have, but is a day to day decision I think.

Today I choose to be grateful, and I am content.

I pray this attitude, this atomic habit as it were, continues to grow in my heart and mind each day, so that I do not need another tap on the shoulder at midnight from the Father and a three hour Holy Spirit led seminar about my lack of gratitude.

And yet, if I need it? I welcome it.

Bless you heaps,