Rituals

{  Freesia, orchids + stack of new, handmade knit cotton napkins  }

Do you know what does make me happy? I mean, really ridiculously happy? When my weekends include a hearty dose of polishing-the-home and gently-taking-care-of-myself rituals, plus lots of creating-of-things with my hands, like:

• Freshening up our vases with new, vibrant blooms after a trip to my flower guy
• Unpacking groceries and filling up bowls with onions and garlic and stacking washed tomatoes and lemons on platters across our countertop
• Making an "old-fashioned" type of Sunday dinner with chicken soup or a roast birdie, and then packing up the leftovers for lunch
• Dusting all the surfaces and sweeping the floors (and wondering every week how two very tidy people can create so much dust—I blame NYC, of course)
• Adding drops of essential oils into glass pots of melting coconut oil and cacao butter every few weeks to make my lotions and potions
• Pulling off the bedsheets and snapping on crisp, fresh new ones every other week
• Giving some love to the plants on our windowsills
• Knitting up a storm of useful things
• Baking up some nutty, dense muffins and cakes

{  Refined-sugar/Gluten-free Raw Cacao Torte Muffins from two weekends ago  }

{  Something successful from last Sunday's baking session  |  Coco-Carrot-Buckwheat Muffins  }

{  Refined-sugar/Gluten-free Almond + Blueberry Brunch Cake from yesterday morning  }

I don't think I'd have any trouble fitting in Laura Ingalls' Big Woods or Lucy Maud Montgomery's Avonlea. Or 1950, I suppose—which involves a larger discussion. Home or business world? Creativity or analytics? To-do's or status sheets? Grocery lists or punch sheets? Creating with my hands or popping open PowerPoint? Staring at a screen or starting at, for-the-love-of-all-that-is-good-in-the-world, just about anything else?

{  Hazy gray summer tank, in progress last week  }

Of course, the point of all that fluffing and buffing is to settle back with a book on the couch to admire my handiwork. While sipping on a tumbler of tequila or a glass of wine, depending on the season and mood. And some enjoyable show that doesn't require too much brainpower to follow along with on in the background to keep me company and because I don't enjoy silence.

And then Monday morning comes and back to the corporate world I go. So long, Little House.