The Love of Keeping Home ~ Life in Seasons

How To Be Happy

(And Not Only When The Sun is Shining)

One of my favorite writers is Susan Branch. She is also an amazing illustrator of beautifully happy and inspiring water color paintings.

She speaks directly to my heart in so many wonderful ways. Her love for general day to day life is an encouragement. She finds the grace and happiness in all these little moments that sum up what we are doing...living our lives!

Her ability to capture the meaning in the simplicities of God's creation in animals and nature's seasons is uplifting. Plus she lives on Martha's Vineyard so I crave with jealousy!! :)

I love, love, love her LOVE of dishes, quilts, recipes...you know all the "things" that seem everyday normal to many. When in fact they are the absolute essentials to our home comforts. At least I thinks so :)

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My favorite novelist include, because I am such a romantic: Jane Austen (I'm sure many of you already predicted that), Louisa May Alcott, Jan Karon, Beatrix Potter, Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anne Bronte, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Elizabeth Gaskell (she wrote the infamous book Cranford...which was made into a made for t.v on PBS mini series), C.S. Lewis, Tracy Chevelier. There are more but these are my favorite.

The Library

You might want to read some of these novels. They are sure to brighten and enlighten your mood :)

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This book was written from Glady's Taber. You may recognize her name from past posts I've done. She was a woman who mainly journal-ed her time and days spent on her cottage Stillmeadow. She was an educated woman from the early 1900's. She studied at Wellesley College then began writing columns in Womens Magazines regarding House and Home.

She had such a positive outlook on the mundane days of home. She completely took the "mundane" out from it. She's an inspiration of mine.

Do any of you journal? I am infatuated with the idea, but I feel I lack the ability to be interesting unless I am making it up. So while I am an owner of many journals (because the cover & binding is so pretty) at last, the pages remain blank. :)

It's March 1st and I am so excited. Except for an inevitable that is lurking around the corner on the Ides of March. I can't wait for the primrose I planted last summer to bloom. Hopefully the rabbits who seem to love our yard won't feel hungry when hopping around there.

I can't ever seem to keep tulips, hyacinths, daffodils or crocus. Those fluffy little critters my children adore keep eating the bulbs. So my spring flowerbeds always remain the same...bare.

We aren't going to be in this house for too much longer. This may be our last Spring here (Spring is March 20th, for those who can't wait). I am nostalgic over the 3ft mums and asters I've watched bloom each Autumn for the last five years. But they keep the charm of this old Tudor house, so I think I should not take them with me.

I know the warmth is coming because the bird activity is intense on the 35th block of Poly drive. My little tuxedo Anna goes insane while sitting in the bay window all morning. She watches the birds swoop from one end of the yard to the front porch. She jumps, leaps and scratches at the window. Her teeth chatter with anticipation and need to bite down on one of those chubby birds. I think they know what they are doing too. They seem to taunt her knowing full well there is glass between them and Anna.