A Star is Born

 

🍄🌺🍄🌺🍄

In 2019 I came up with the hairbrained idea of making another quilt. This time, I would size it to fit our bed, which I had not done before. All of my other quilts are hanging over bannisters, resting in folds at the foot of beds, or lounging on the backs of chairs and racks. This one would be different; we would sleep under it. It would fit our queen size mattress and come down to the dust ruffle. That was the criteria, and my needle and thread would be coaxed toward that goal.

    As usual, when I sprint down the quilt trail, I jump in on all fours and start cutting and stitching, not stopping to eat a sandwich, not thinking about the future, and certainly not planning how I will accomplish certain maneuvers along my quilt making way. A plan such as this one could hold the potential for a disaster, but as the instructor of my first quilt course once said, "There is no mistake that cannot be fixed."

One thing, or one word, at a time

 

🍉🍈🍉🍈🍉

I turned the page of a used paperback to find a miniature brochure stuck between the pages. It was not much bigger than a Post-it note and boasted of a Speed Cleaning Guide, Compliments of Real Simple. In eagerness to improve all areas of my life, I read it quickly and learned that I could swoosh, wipe, squeegee, spray, and straighten my whole house in nineteen minutes.

    By the time I finished speed-reading the brochure, persuasive words had almost convinced me that I could accomplish such a feat, but before jumping on the house cleaning bandwagon, only to risk tumbling off and hitting the ground, I conceded that I could no more clean my house in nineteen minutes than I could write a chapter in nineteen minues.

    I pictured Martha Stewart, the queen of domesticity, running circles around me, and Danielle Steel, the bestselling author, spewing pages of a manuscript out of a typewriter, like a geyser spews water and steam. Then I looked around me. Dust on the windowsill made me sigh, and words not yet written piled up in my head higher than the sheets and towels in my laundry basket. What to do?

    "Be not dismayed," I told myself.

    In both instances, I will keep trying, because every house is cleaned one sweep at a time, and every book is written one word at a time.

🍈🍉🍈🍉🍈

Don't be blindsided by someone else's "perfection"

🌿🍁🌿🍁🌿

A friend invited me to visit while she was house-sitting. I drove to a hamlet about an hour away and parked in a paved driveway. A winding sidewalk showed me the way to the front door. Taking baby steps, I admired the meticulous lawn with fresh mulch nestled around lush green bushes. Dead leaves and weeds had taken the high road, and the front porch was spotless; no trace of a spider web or wasp nest.

    I rang the doorbell, and my friend let me in. When we had finished eating lemon icebox pie, she led me on a tour of the house -- three floors of more meticulousness. Every room had been decorated in House Beautiful fashion, with such things as white coverlets and matching dust ruffles, accent pillows in soft aqua, and flowing curtains framing all the windows. Pictures, in the perfect shape and scene for the space, hung in every spot where a picture should be, and if I swore, I would swear that not one speck of dust rested on any surface. I hinted to my friend that the team of housekeepers and interior decorators should be awarded a trophy. She assured me that the owner vacuumed and dusted, as well as decorated every wall, every nook and space herself.

    After an enjoyable visit with my friend, I drove away from the rows of stately homes back to my neck of the woods, passing by hay fields in need of baling and barns in need of painting. I turned into my gravel driveway and into the garage. Getting out of the car, I stepped over a wayward leaf, and on the way to put my things away, I tripped over a dust bunny. Compared to where I had just been, I had work to do.

    So, I started cleaning, but not with a mop or a broom.