Simplicity and harmony are the ultimate conditions to be attained in all things.

H. Fletcher

Simplicity and harmony. A thousand times, yes. I mentioned in my post, Grace Goals for May, that we were having company, life was busy, my husband was about to graduate from college, and we were still waiting for him to see an orthopedic surgeon to discuss hip replacement surgery on both hips. Update: All three sets of company have come and gone and we enjoyed their visits. I am still getting our house back in order here and there. My husband John is now a college graduate. Hooray! He barely made it through the ceremony as it was lengthy, but he is glad he put the effort in to walk across the stage. He has talked with the surgeon who will operate and the date for that is near the end of July. John is still in a lot of pain and is having difficulty sleeping and being comfortable. The end of July seems so far away! My dad just received more steroid shots in L4 and L5 of his back due to degenerating disks that are painful. We have had a lot going on and I feel a bit overwhelmed.

For simplicity’s sake and for harmony in the days, I have completely gone away from Instagram and Pinterest. I am signing off of Facebook for awhile as well. Many times, I catch myself scrolling through posts and photos when maybe I should be resting my eyes instead or throwing in a load of laundry. My husband would add possibly baking cookies in the kitchen, haha. It’s a thought. I can’t decide weather to make oatmeal or peanut butter cookies. Either way, it’s on the ‘agenda’ for the weekend. I am trying to do what I can do simply every day to regain energy and keep up strength to help take care of things that need to be done around the house and for the family. John can just not sign in to Facebook for months at a time. I am an ‘all or nothing’ kind of person and, right now, social media has to be put on hold for awhile. I would like to write a bit more here and in keeping with simplicity and harmony theme, just keep it on the blog right now. It feels good to write something again and not ponder whether to post it in four other places on social media. Four less decisions to make, really, which then frees up time to go start dinner…or laundry…or cookies.

I am still looking for the stray gifts in the days and have some photos coming to share. I do like having a theme and the four photo topics I have chosen are: things found early, things that are tiny, things that are sunny, and things found in the shadows. It feels like a treasure hunt of sorts and it gets me outside looking to see what I can see.

I am observing ways to keep things simple and in harmony with family, health, and life and as always, keeping a record of graces.