I grew up with Mary Engelbreit and Kim Jacobs calendars. With the cozy homes depicted in their art, I couldn’t help but dream about creating a home someday. My mama, who made our old Victorian house an extension of her loving arms, would walk through our neighborhood with her four daughters. Each of us girls […]
Tag Archives: contentment
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.” – William Shakespeare I have a confession to make: I cry when I return home from road trips. All those hours gazing out the car window, I’m free to imagine my perfect life . . . the country house surrounded by a wide circle of trees, the […]
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul . . . Emily Dickinson I was struggling with contentment. The city felt crowded, scary, and full of sadness. My husband works hard to provide this lovely old home in a safe neighborhood, but I was having trouble being grateful. As usual, I was […]
Have you ever experienced the scent of bluebonnets? I don’t mean holding one to your nose; rather, the aroma that floats on the breeze over a blooming field of blue. Walking through a meadow last weekend, alone with that sweet scent, I cried. It was too much beauty to contain. They were, of course, happy […]

The ‘Country Girls’ in the front flower bed just finished their fall flush. I identify with those garden mums. I am a country girl too, in spite of the fact that, like them, I’ve never actually lived in the country. Our house in this suburban city is a dear home to me now, but it […]