october, thus far

...honoring Autumn...taking good care of ourselves...creating more fresh and lovely concoctions to tend our homes....and books, always books...

Please join in, whenever you like. Warmth and beauty and calm await.

early autumn at Wisteria & Sunshine

I didn't intend to be away for so long...but we have been peacefully busy at Wisteria & Sunshine...reading The Way of the Happy Woman, creating our Daybooks to support us as we are weaving the Fabric of our Days...celebrating Banner Days like Edith Holden's birthday and the first day of Autumn...

As October flows on, we will be filling our Daybooks with pages to help us pare down our homes and hours before the fullness of the late Autumn/early Winter holidays...and continue learning ways to care for ourselves more deeply...and find happiness in the serene Autumn world...

We would love to have you join us, if the robin hasn't already shown you the key to the ivy-covered door of what one of my members calls "a secret garden".  It is a sheltered place of encouragement and beauty and there will always room for more kindred spirits...

july and august at wisteria & sunshine...

..will look something like this...

We are focusing on Ease and Refreshment, with some Delight woven in.

Won't you join us?

Looking back on May and forward to June...

The last few weeks were steeped in pantry thoughts and freshening...rummaging in kitchen drawers and bringing clarity there, as well. We continue to find our love of certain books and authors coming up in our quiet conversations...more Elizabeth Goudge appreciation and also the Brambly Hedge books and Tasha Tudor. 

With our Spring Cleaning put away for now, we will be spending some of June exploring Simplicity...both to help us in the tending of our homes and to prepare for a restful and delightful Summer with lots of good reading and refreshment.

We would love for you join us...

A glimpse of recent days at Wisteria & Sunshine!

Such Springlike days and conversations we've been sharing! Spring Cleaning in the kitchen now...having spruced up our sinks and made our first homemade cleanser, we are now focusing on making our fridges and freezers more pleasant and organized and will soon turn our attention to our counters and cupboards, drawers and pantries. 

April was also rich with the celebrating of two beloved authors-Miss Read and Elizabeth Goudge. At the end of May I am looking forward to introducing our members to a delightful writer from the early twentieth century.

Until then, we will keep seeking simplicity and beauty...you may find out more about our gentle community by clicking here.

our early April

Our Unhurried Spring Cleaning continues from the Living Room to the Bedrooms and soon we will arrive at the Kitchen for a leisurely and thorough freshening up. We are appreciating Spring in each other's company and encouraging one another in our earth-conscious ways. 

We are discovering the arc of ages amongst our membership and exploring the tending or ourselves (as well as our homes) and aging gracefully...

march thus far...

We've been talking about making little spots to tend ourselves...and are welcoming the signs of Spring...discussing Wind in the Willows...I've shared my beloved granola recipe... and we have just begun our Unhurried Spring Cleaning...

finishing february

Some glimpses of what we have been spending time with these February days. And now we are looking forward to March and all its possibilities...

Do join us at anytime...

early February...

...and we are looking back and seeing more peace in our paper-keeping, have been learning a bit about Candlemas and sharing the ways we honor it and are just delighting in getting to know one another in a bright and private place.

Looking ahead, we will be continuing our conversation about Miss Read's book Village School...and will be exploring ways to keep special days more ecologically, simply and-dare I say it-consistently...especially in the area of remembering birthdays and other anniversaries in a timely fashion.

A bit later in the week we will return to looking at our Daily Rhythms, with a focus on Morning and Evening routines, hoping to bring a freshness to them to match the stirrings of new beginnings we can't help noticing outside our windows.

You are so welcome to join in at any time...

our first week at wisteria and sunshine...

...has been so warm and fruitful...

We have been READING a tiny domestic story by A.A. Milne in honor of his birthday...and EXPLORING the idea of Daily Rhythms and how they help our days flow more smoothly...

...we are DISCUSSING the joys and burdens of Paper, in all its forms in our lives and are BEGINNING the work of taming it...

...and we are GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER and delighting in the finding of kindred spirits to help each other on this path of Simplicity and Beauty.


I am so grateful for the beautiful beginning and hope you will join us...it will never be too late.


Kind words from Valerie...

"I feel like Mary Lennox, having finally found her way into The Secret Garden - so full of creative energy and beauty and vision, and so encouraged to have such a lovely gathering place in which to meet like-minded souls and to make friends.  Greetings, friends! Can't you just smell the sweet, damp earth, and feel the fresh cool air on your rosy cheeks and nose?"

The membership page may be found here...

Wisteria and Sunshine is now open!

 

...the door is now open at Wisteria & Sunshine!

You will find a little banner on this page at Wisteria and Sunshine that will take you to Paypal for the subscription and then just a few short steps will lead you to my new little corner of the web. If you experience trouble with the banner link, try using a different browser, preferably Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome. All of my blogs and websites look best in those browsers, Firefox being the best of all.

If you encounter any problems at all, don't hesitate to email me.

I will be right here all day, grateful for your interest, looking forward to beginning the journey together.

  *Planning to open sometime on Saturday, January 14th, and you will receive an email to let you know if you are signed up below.

Soon we will begin this journey together.*

 

"As I watch the stars of evening, and in the morning open my window toward the east, I shall observe the Ceremonial of quietness of heart, of simplicity, and poise of spirit, that I may keep my soul and the souls of others free from entanglements in the machinery of the day."

 - Ceremonials of Common Days, Abbie Graham, 1923     

Last year, as I began making plans for uncluttering my home and my habits and days and as I pictured, say, clearing out my pantry...making the choices of what to keep, what might be missing, how to make it all work better and more simply and beautifully and how doing so would affect my cooking and our health and just the daily pleasure of life...I could suddenly see it all in blog form-the steps, layer by layer, that would add up to an orderly and nourishing pantry in posts and sun-lit photographs and conversations.  And I realized from all my online time and real-life time with women, that many of us are looking for this clarifying of our everydays...to make them more "just right" in the Goldilocks sense...to pare down, unclutter, and do what is necessary to find the "quietness of heart" that I imagine Abbie Graham (in the quote above) would have had as she looked out that eastern window of a morning. I also realized that all that I used to share with my papery creations-the peaceful beauty, the celebration of the seasons and banner days, the nourishment to be found in books and poetry, the particulars of homemaking and staying connected with others and the earth...could be poured into a soulful, private online place...with the seeking of simplicity at the heart of it all.

So why not take this journey together? I will share what I have learned through the years about living more simply and ecologically, share the writings and other gleanings that are inspiring me now, honor the high days and holy days, delve into everything that touches on living more in rhythm with simplicity and beauty, with the earth, with all the "gentle powers" (as Rosamunde Pilcher put it)...homemaking, gardening, cookery, reading, music,organizing and tending.

I want to present, for a small cost each month ($7), an approach to simplicity, task by task, in gentle real-time...weaving it into our days in a modest way, not as some huge project that overwhelms what we really want our days to be about. There will be plenty of inspiration-visual and written, but with an focus on the actual doing of what it takes to make our domestic lives more harmonious...woven in and amongst all the seasonal, cosy, literary beauty.

Why "Wisteria and Sunshine"? I chose the name from the words in Enchanted April. Have you seen the movie, or read the delightful book? In both, an ad in a London newspaper which reads... "To Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine. Small medieval Italian Castle on the shores of the Mediterranean to be let furnished for the month of April. Necessary servants remain" and which brings four women together and together they find ways to let go of what no longer serves them and to open to understanding and wisdom and other good things. I also chose the name because it makes me happy just to hear and read those words. It is my hope that this Wisteria & Sunshine will also bring women together, out of glare of the wider Web...a calm and encouraging place to refresh and inspirit. And tho' I won't be able to give you the castle or the servants or the Mediterranean Sea lapping at the rocks below your flower-entwined window, you will find:

 -something beautiful and/or useful to read or see everyday

 -a focus each month on an area of Life or Home to tend 
(January and February's focus will be our desks, and in the W&S way, we will work on bringing a few, small areas of planning and paper-tending and daily rhythms to clarity this month and then add to those as the months unfold)

-"rooms" to explore with lists of movies and books and resources for a thoughtful life inspired by literature and nature and living more in tune with the seasons and holidays. I will always be adding to these rooms, tho' they may be a bit spare at first. Lots of vintage flavor from the words and images in my old books and magazines, gathering the still useful and lovely from their pages...balanced with photographs from my very real life...

-small projects to add layers of handmade beauty and meaning to corners of your home, using what you already have and lovelies gathered in nature...

-recipes and ways to approach home-keeping that are gentle on the earth and your pocket-book...


-occasional printables (in my Small Meadow Press style) to help on the path to simplicity... those I have found over the years that contribute to life flowing more smoothly and not add to the clutter that so easily enters our lives...


-seasonal and holiday greetings, observations and celebrations from the obscure (St. Distaff's Day) to the dear and familiar (Christmas, for instance, the keeping of which will receive much loving attention here next year in the hopes of making it ever more peaceful and less hectic)...


-a community of kindred spirits which you may join in with as much or as little as you like through comments and profiles (including my offer to create a personal avatar for the first thirty members)...

"The heroine enjoys her life by rearranging
it according to her needs...she knows that right here is where things happen, not somewhere else...
that the world for her is a place where things are engendered and brought to life." 

-Henry Miller

Since my very first tiny home and garden as a young woman on her own, some thirty years ago, I have been paying attention to what makes a soulful home. And later on, as a mother of young children, to what makes an orderly, happy home. And more recently, to what makes a serene and supportive home....always dreaming and doing and often falling short of my vision, but learning and rearranging and adapting, as a true Heroine does with her life. Just a few years ago I wrote this:

"My home will have grown from a charming, half-decorated, partly-cared for home to a well-tended, uncluttered expression of who I really am. It will have only those things I find useful and/or beautiful in it (dear William Morris!) and I will have found a rhythm for tending it that leaves me time to create the still-lifes and celebrations of the seasons that are much more what I am about than the constant moving around of piles that I spend my days with now.

In a corner of my beautiful bedroom, where the dressing table now stands neglected, will be a small assortment of lovely products to tend my fifty-year old self with care and pleasure, a candle to light for so many good reasons, and a journal or calendar where I spend time each evening recording my days..."

I am glad to realize that I have come a long way towards my goals and, of course, have a long way to go...creating Wild Simplicity and Deep Domesticity is a journey, not a destination (as they say). If you would like to walk with me along this path, please sign up below (underneath the comments) to receive word when Wisteria and Sunshine opens for membership (sometime in early January!)....

P.S. Some people who are more in the know than I about Facebook, have convinced me that it is a favorite way of communicating for many and that a Facebook page for Wisteria & Sunshine would be a good thing. So I've created one that will be simple for me to update and here is the link in case you are interested.