It was raining so hard the other night when we had friends over for dinner that I ended up making a small arrangement with flowers I had dried on a rack the week before! I just couldn’t go outside to pick anything!
I encourage you to make the extra effort to do things a little more nicely every day, even when things in general seem like a bit of a disaster!
For instance, setting the family table with care helps the children to learn the importance of order and everyday beauty.
Later in life, their memories of these humble family times will protect them from temptation to disorder or help them recover from confusion.
The housewife has this crucial role in these small matters that turn out to be instruments of peace. I wrote more about it here.
I hope you are making sandwich bread for your family this week and your starter is doing well for you! Practicing this skill will build up your bread-making muscles for the next step, which we will get to next week, probably.
This type of thing feel extra hard and unworthy when you pick up all day and your house still looks like a disaster
I love the idea of “inoculation “ against future difficulties through the beauty of the home! It’s such a simple thing (not necessarily easy, but simple), and it can have such a profound impact on the children. Not to mention, the little slice of sanity it brings the mom to just get *one* thing nicely set up amidst the chaos 😊
I also like to get my girls involved in beautifying the table and I’ve noticed one in particular really loves to put little flourishes and special touches to the table (eg little wildflowers at each setting from our yard, an illustrated scrap of paper with our name on it, a pretty little bead at each place). It’s so sweet!