The Experiment: Day 46 ~ Because I Just Wanted To Look At Something Beautiful…

Aren’t these Chinese paper umbrellas beautiful? I just had it in my heart this morning, on this Monday, the beginning of a whole new week full of possibilities, to just gaze at something beautiful. I spend hours going through the graphic site that I use to pick out pictures to use for blog posts and I save them in a folder on my desktop. I have had this one for some time and never found a good reason to use it. But today the bright beautiful colors just moved me. I want to find all the beauty in the world that I can, I want to soak it in, I want to smile my way through the days as much as possible, or at least feel peace in my heart. This gives me peace.

What do you see, right now, what is in your line of vision that is beautiful, that brings you joy? I have the most stunning bouquet of alstromeria on my desk here in the studio. I purchased them last week for Noni and I to have on the tableΒ  for our weekend dinners. But Noni wasn’t well this weekend so she didn’t come. I moved the flowers in here so that I could enjoy them as I sit here and write and work. I am a huge advocate of having fresh flowers in the house. I buy them inexpensively at the grocery store for $4 a bunch. I’m not talking about a floral display. Right now I am looking at these flowers and they make me smile. This is not a gigantic, over-the-moon, life-changing thing, it is simply something that makes me happy. We need to surround ourselves with things that make us happy.

And I have my fireplace app going on my desktop, and it is beautiful and soothing with it’s popping and crackling as it does each day. I’ve kept it on all day every day since I found it. And I look out my studio windows, the pride of the place, windows run all the way down two walls in here and I look out at my beautiful woods in this little forest that I live in, and I count myself lucky every single day when I sit here facing these windows looking out at the beauty of nature. I feel so blessed. I AM so blessed. Despite the ongoing challenges with mental health, which have thankfully been much better lately, but still there hovering at the edges, I am so deeply grateful for all of the beautiful things in my life. Here is my view out my studio windows. If you right-click on “Open image in new tab” you can see them real big!

And my little pugs are snoring sweetly under my table and my heart and mind are full of so many things. It is a Monday with a whole week stretched out before me. Today I go to my med management appointment, and then grocery shopping, and then to another grocery store where they have a reverse osmosis water machine out front. I will fill my 8 big glass gallon jugs (We have a water issue here in Wilmington and the tap water is not safe to drink.) and I will come home to my babies and cuddle them and maybe take a little rest with them in our chair. It will be a good day. It will be enough.

I am still adjusting to the Daylight Savings Time change. It gets dark so early and this somehow really affects me. I generally like it when it gets dark earlier, it is soothing to me, hunkering down and cozying in as the world outside my windows disappears and it is only what is happening here inside the house that is my realm. It is the time when we move from the outer world to the world inside, we reconnect with our heart, our dreams, and we begin to look back over the year behind us and ahead to the year before us. It is a thoughtful time. But yesterday late afternoon was unsettling to me. I am finding ways to adjust.

I hope you have a beautiful week dear friends. I hope you are feeling gratitude for lovely things around you. Would you share with me in the comments below some of the beautiful things right now, in your line of vision, right where you are? I just had a funny little thought, something that I would like to have here on my worktable, something that would bring me joy, that would feel good in my hands, something that I think I will look for soon at the Dollar Store. A clear glass dish full of marbles. I’m sure I could get the dish and the marbles for a dollar apiece. And another thing I’ve always had but not for a long time that I have longsince wanted to get for my studio. I have always had a Beta Fish here for company. I want to get one and I might just do it today when I am out. They are mesmerizing, they bring more life and color to your environment for very little money. What might you bring into your world that would make it brighter, that would lift your heart? Marbles and a beta fish are on my agenda. Tell me what you plan to do to brighten your world.

I hope your day is beautiful. I hope your week is full of surprises and delights. And I hope you are at peace in your heart. I am sending you love, so much love, and waving to you from my home here in North Carolina…

 


The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness:Β 
Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
β€œDo or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda

Comments

  1. I was at an event on the weekend where they decorated the space with twinkly lights in jars! Obviously these would have been battery operated. They were so pretty and I thought maybe I would try filling a vase with some as a holiday decoration.

    • Oh that sounds lovely Joan! My daughter has a big jar like that in her living room with twinkly lights in it and it is just magical! I am delighted thinking about you having this too, and won’t it be lovely for the holidays? Enjoy honey! πŸ˜€

  2. What a lovely studio you have Maitri!
    No, you don’t want to see what I’m looking at now! I started to empty some drawers yesterday, but gave up when I didn’t know what to do with all odds and ends I found – so it’s all spread out in front of me.
    Maybe I can tackle it tomorrow…
    Margaretha

    • Margaretha! Oh you poor dear!

      You know a lady I follow has a room she called The Blue Room. She said it was so full of junk and stuff that nobody wanted to even go IN the room. And the closet IN the room was stacked floor to ceiling. She never thought she’d get it cleaned up! But she started using a timer for only 5 minutes at a time, and she tackled that room with that timer and the closet inside and she just finally got it all done! The whole room and closet are cleaned out. She said it’s a miracle. Maybe you could try setting a timer for 5 minutes? Just an idea. In any case I hope you get it done. Also there were bags or boxes labeled “Keep” “Donate” and “Throw Away.” That might be a way to start separating things?

      Good Luck and may the force be with you! πŸ™‚

  3. oooh- love the light through the windows in your studio! I am in the process of cleaning mine-finding many surprises as I look for things that I have misplaced. Discussion with my daughter about my grandmother’s flatwear. It’s not a full set, and it’s not fancy but it was my grandmothers. She does want it- so it will stay with me until she can take it. Until then I am thinking maybe a place setting of her pieces could become the “celebration ware” to be used on a person’s special day? Not sure why I am telling you this, unless it’s to remind myself to use what makes me happy and not stick it in a drawer………

    • Oh Lorraine! I’m so glad you shared this especially because I think the last thing you said we ALL need to hear! “Use what makes you happy and don’t stick it in a drawer.” YES! That’s a lesson for us all. Thank you for sharing honey! πŸ™‚

  4. colorful “oriental” umbrellas, fresh flowers, and gratitude — i love astromeria, they last a long time and give me their beauty on my kitchen table altar or beside my fireplace (it’s not winter here yet!) i love baubles and mythic objects and windows that open onto nature. i love the life you have created for yourself, and i love the life i have here, created for myself. sisters of creation, of transformation, beauty lovers, kind, wise, givers to many, oh maitri I LOVE these blogs, and see magic everywhere i look, especially out the study window where i’m typing now, at my many gardens and trees — and maybe if we’re lucky, my pumpkin cat georgie (aka odin in my stories) might make an appearance!
    xo ka

    • Ah Katya, you truly have created such a magical world. I love seeing it when you share pictures. And yes my spirit is beginning to re-enter this house, is ready to make a home here. It’s a lovely little house but I haven’t really been ready to move back in in my heart since the fire now, well, in February, it will be 4 years. I am just beginning to find my way and it starts with the little things doesn’t it? Appreciating the beauty before you in the natural world, fresh flowers, our little furry companions. I’m so glad to see you today. YOU make my heart happy. I love you dear sister…

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