SHOW OFF YOUR COTTAGE MONDAY

Welcome to our second "Show Off Your Cottage Monday". Please join us as we celebrate how we live and create surroundings that are charming, warm, engaging and most of all, personal.

We are everywhere blasted by noise: traffic, construction, radio, television, iPods, the sound of busy fingers on computer keyboard clicking away, printers and photocopies, lawnmowers, leaf blowers and the constant ring of cell phones not quite drowning out the sound of airplanes passing overhead… our minds and spirits were not designed to battle the hyper pace and sounds of our modern world… we need a place to hide… an escape into the quiet…

No, I’m not talking about complete silence; that can actually drive you insane. I’m talking about a place surprisingly accessible where the constant din of civilization simply drops away: Home!

Don’t you get tired of spending your days closeted in the office? I certainly do! When I'm at the office I often daydream of home. I’d go home, go to the garden, check what new magic awaits there, see what new color autumn has bestow upon each tree and leave, make some dinner and then, of course, burrow under that puffy duvet with a good book and… no noise, nowhere to go and nothing to do for a bit. Doesn't it sound great?

Today, I’m celebrating my personal oasis, the place to recharge and rejuvenate after a long stressful day. Each night I hurl myself toward my nightlight and this pile of pillows with total gratitude and . . . affection; which signify: “home means everything to me”.

What are you celebrating today? Link up and tell us all about it.

Another Saturday

I love Saturdays…The sky has been announcing rain from the early hours of the morning, but it only rained late in the evening. As I do every Saturday, and Sunday, and any other day I get to stay home, as soon as I got up I went to stood by the enchanted window, to look at the enchanted garden... peaceful slumber waking my eyes. The last roses of the season reminding me of glories past beyond the window…

As I stood there, the same stillness and peacefulness that seemed to have charmed the land slowly started to swept me off my feet... it lifted me up and enveloped my soul. Contemplating the nature of God as universal good brings peace... In mornings like this, I often think of Heaven, and of that joyful day when there’ll be no more sorrow, and pain and death will be no more…. I often think of a beautiful morning, and a beautiful garden full of fragrances where I'd linger in God’s presence forever more…

The grey sky, the soft sound of the wind playing among the branches of the callery pear tree, the sleepy flora--a feast to the eyes and soul…. a cute little furry stranger—enchanted as the garden himself, rested peacefully among the flowers in the Golden Unicorn Garden….

He suddenly perceived my presence and came over... meowing softly, as if welcoming me to the garden, and the morning... as if inviting me to share the garden he so graciously had claimed as his own.

Although I didn't know his name, or where he had come from, I did what he asked and went outside… I followed him to hiding holes and secret chambers...

It was an enchanted morning, indeed, although I could not stop thinking how sad would be to notice a sudden drop in song birds in my secret garden… how do I convince a cat to stay away from my feathered friends? After that I got a bit cold and went back in the house...

Ah Morning, you have a way with my heart…

you pass away too soon, you are swift to go.

My heart overflows like a brimming cup before you….